Cavaliers vs. Heat: Can Miami pull off massive upset? Series keys, schedule and prediction

The Eastern Conference’s top seed, the Cleveland Cavaliers, will take on the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, who advanced out of the play-in tournament, in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. This marks the first time the two franchises will square off in the postseason. Which is good, because they haven’t really had anything in common until now.

What we know about the Cavaliers

After white-knuckling it through a seven-game, first-round slugfest with the Magic before getting drummed out in Round 2 by the eventual champion Celtics, the Cavs entered this season with reason to believe. Sure, it would require healthier seasons from stars Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, who missed a combined 84 games in 2023-24, and new head coach Kenny Atkinson finding fresh ways to wring more efficient offensive production out of the roster than predecessor J.B. Bickerstaff. If it all broke right, though, Cleveland could be pretty good!

Um … it all broke right. Like, really, really right.

The Cavs opened the season with 15 straight wins and never looked back, rampaging to a 64-18 record — the highest win total of any Cleveland squad without LeBron James — and the No. 1 seed in the East.

They did get better health: from Mitchell and Mobley, both of whom will likely earn All-NBA recognition; from Garland, who reminded those who’d downgraded him during an injury-ravaged campaign that he might be the most underrated star in the league; and from Ty Jerome, who spent his first three pro seasons as a fringe rotation player bouncing from team to team, who missed nearly all of last season with an ankle injury, and who blossomed this season into one of the NBA’s best backup guards, a legitimate Sixth Man of the Year candidate.

Atkinson did revamp Cleveland’s offense, moving Mitchell and Garland off the ball more frequently, taking advantage of their shooting gravity and opening up wider driving and cutting lanes while diverting some on-ball reps elsewhere — most notably Mobley, whose leap on the offensive end turned him into one of the best all-around players in the league. It worked: Cleveland led the NBA in points scored per possession, fielding one of the most efficient offenses of the last 50 years.

They were balanced, too: With Defensive Player of the Year candidate Mobley and perennially unsung interior deterrent Jarrett Allen leading the way, the Cavs boasted a top-eight defense. It all adds up to excellence; Cleveland finished with the 13th-highest margin of victory in NBA history.

For six months, the Cavs checked every box, including an elite record against good teams, with splits of their season series against both Boston and Oklahoma City. Everything points toward them being a championship-caliber team. All that’s left now is to prove it.

What we know about the Heat

Well, they spent most of the first three and a half months of the season in a spiritual tables, ladders and chairs match with their best player, which wasn’t particularly fun. Then, after they traded Jimmy Butler away, the Heat lost 17 of their next 21 games, including a 10-game losing streak — the franchise’s longest skid in 17 years, since before Erik Spoelstra took the clipboard from Pat Riley, with a frankly unbelievable number of blown leads.

That wasn’t particularly fun, either.

Given how abysmal the bottom of the East was, though, even that horrendous stretch wasn’t enough to totally sink the Heat … which afforded Spoelstra and his mish-mash crew of Finals-run-era holdovers and post-Jimmy-deal newcomers an opportunity to find themselves.

Miami took advantage of a friendly closing slate, with linchpin All-Stars Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo leading an 8-4 run over the final 12 games of the regular season. The Heat hammered the feckless Bulls in Chicago in their play-in opener, behind 38 from an unfettered Herro … and survived blowing a 17-point lead on Friday in Atlanta, thanks to a heroic overtime performance by Davion Mitchell — a Sacramento cast-off who’d gone through the motions on an underwhelming Raptors team before landing in Miami as the Jimmy trade grew into a five-team monster, promptly proved himself a hand-in-glove fit for a hard-charging defensive culture, and then saved the friggin’ season:

The Heat, who spent the first five months of the season stinking at offense, have scored nearly 122 points per 100 possessions over their last dozen games. They have Adebayo leading a defense that finished the regular season ninth in points allowed per possession, and that has clamped down at a near-top-five level with Bam, Davion Mitchell and Andrew Wiggins on the floor together. And they have Spoelstra, still one of the league’s most meticulous game-planners, with eight or nine guys he trusts.

I’m not sure that’s enough to put a scare into one of the best regular-season teams we’ve seen in ages. Be honest, though: Are you sure it’s not?

Head-to-head

Cleveland won the season series, 2-1. Miami’s one win came back in December, with Butler in uniform, Herro popping for 34 and the Heat making more 3-pointers than the Cavs — one of just 23 games this season in which Cleveland made fewer triples than its opponent.

Cleveland’s January win came amid The Jimmy Unpleasantness. The lone post-trade-deadline contest saw Miami erase a 17-point first-half deficit and lead midway through the fourth quarter … only for the Cavs to charge back behind a sort-of-small-ball look that put Allen on the bench in favor of running Mobley at the 5 alongside De’Andre Hunter and Max Strus with Garland and Mitchell in the backcourt. That group ripped off a 12-2 run to close it out, weathering an “if his heel wasn’t on the sideline” triple from Duncan Robinson to finish off a five-point win.

A win’s a win … though you’d imagine that was a little too close for Atkinson’s comfort, and maybe the kind of finish that the Heat feel like they can build on as they prepare to try to spring what would be a massive upset.

Matchup to watch

Bam vs. Mobley

Adebayo and Mobley are the queen-on-the-chessboard pieces for their respective teams: the interior defenders able to switch out to the perimeter against any ball-handler without conceding anything; the offensive hubs who can operate from the elbows and trigger dribble-handoffs or turn, face up and attack; their coaches’ most enticing answers for how best to maximize their own possessions and blow up opponents’. They’ll often guard each other, as they frequently did during their regular-season matchups. (They’ll also guard everybody else … which is kind of the point.)

Mobley doesn’t have to loudly dominate the matchup for Cleveland to win the series. Just quietly continuing to be an elite weak-side help defender, a high-efficiency source of secondary inside-the-arc offense, a complementary facilitator and a good enough on-ball option to hold Adebayo below his season averages should be plenty good enough. (A couple of 30-and-15 games wouldn’t hurt, though.)

But if it tilts the other way — if Bam’s able to use his strength and physicality to dislodge the reedier Mobley when he has the ball; if he’s able to splash a couple of jumpers when Mobley plays him for the drive; if he’s able to show that he, not some up-and-coming interloper, is still the most versatile and virulent all-court defensive big man in the game — then Miami’s exceedingly thin chances of pulling the upset figure to improve.

Crunch-time lineups

Cleveland Cavaliers

Unsurprisingly, Mitchell-Garland-Mobley-Allen is Cleveland’s most frequently used quartet in the fourth quarter. The Cavs outscored opponents by 23 points in 98 final-frame minutes with the core four on the floor. (Why so few? The fact that Cleveland spent more time this season up by 20 or more points than anybody outside Oklahoma City probably has something to do with it.)

Atkinson has plenty of options to choose from for the fifth spot. Jerome could fit the bill if Cleveland needs another ball-handler. Max Strus, a veteran of an NBA Finals run during his time in Miami, shot 38.6% from deep this season, and can play bigger than his size defensively and on the glass. Isaac Okoro and Dean Wade are Cleveland’s best point-of-attack defensive options against guards and big wings, respectively, and can knock down perimeter shots (though opponents will likely make them prove it in the clutch). De’Andre Hunter — imported from Atlanta at February’s trade deadline, averaging 14.3 points and 4.2 rebounds in 25 minutes per game as a Cav, on sterling 49/43/82 shooting splits — might be the cleanest option, as the best amalgamation of size, athleticism and shooting on the board.

Miami Heat

The five-man lineup of Adebayo, Herro, Wiggins, Davion Mitchell and Haywood Highsmith — a low-usage 6-foot-7 3-and-D wing with a 7-foot wingspan — played just 15 fourth-quarter minutes across three games during the regular season. It logged 16 combined minutes in the fourth and overtime in the two play-in games alone.

Spo has other options he can reach for: Duncan Robinson or Alec Burks, if he wants to get some more shooting on the floor; Kyle Anderson, for defensive versatility and another steady pair of hands on the ball; rookie Kel’el Ware, if the Cavs’ two-big alignment is creating mismatch problems on the glass and on the interior. The late-game lean toward Bam-Herro-Wiggins-Mitchell-Highsmith in the two biggest contests of the season, though, might offer an indication of how comfortable Spoelstra has become with a construction that puts four absolute dogs who can dribble, move the ball and shoot (well, kind of, in Bam’s case) around Herro; look for that to be Miami’s preferred setup when it matters most.

Prediction: Cavaliers in five

The Heat have done commendable work to pull out of their post-Jimmy-trade tailspin and win two play-in games on the road to make the postseason proper. When it comes to lining them up against this Cavs team, though, all that commendable work will buy them is a gentleman’s sweep.

Series betting odds

(Via BetMGM)

Cleveland Cavaliers (-2500)

Miami Heat (+1200)

Series schedule (all times Eastern)

Game 1: Sun., April 20 @ Cleveland (7 p.m., TNT)

Game 2: Wed., April 23 @ Cleveland (7:30 p.m., NBA TV)

Game 3: Sat., April 26 @ Miami (1 p.m., TNT)

Game 4: Mon., April 28 @ Miami (TBD)

*Game 5: Wed., April 30 @ Cleveland (TBD)

*Game 6: Fri., May 2 @ Miami (TBD)

*Game 7: Sun., May 4 @ Cleveland (TBD)

*if necessary