Miami (AP) – Cleveland entered Tour 2 with the most unbalanced victory of the NBA Playoff.
Donovan Mitchell scored 22 points, from’Andre Hunter added 19 and the riders led by up to 60 points before beating the Miami Heat 138-83 Monday evening to sweep their first round series of the Eastern Conference in four games.
Ty Jerome had 18 points, Evan Mobley added 17 and Jarrett Allen collected 14 points, 12 rebounds and six interceptions for the riders. Cleveland won the series by 122 points combined, one more than the previous record for the serial margin set by Denver on New Orleans in 2009.
“We came here with a goal in mind,” said Mitchell.
The 55 -point margin of match 4 was the fourth victory in the playoff series. The record is 58 points, made twice: Minneapolis on St. Louis in 1956 and Denver in New Orleans in 2009. The Los Angeles Lakers broke 56 points in 1973.
Nikola Jovic led heat with 24 points. Ban Adebayo scored 13, while Pelle Larsson and Andrew Wiggins each added 12 for Miami.
“Damn was humiliating. This series was humiliating. The last two games were embarrassing,” said Heat Erik Spélstra coach. “But Cleveland is also a very good team. … They showed us why we were not ready for that.”
Cleveland will play Indiana or Milwaukee in the semi-finals of the Eastern Conference. The Pacers lead this 3-1 series; That the Pacers or the Bucks advance, the match 1 of this series would be in Cleveland and would not play until Saturday at the earliest.
“I’m still a big fan of rest,” said Mitchell.
This is the third moment of Miami swept away in a series for the best of seven. The others: against Chicago in 2007 and against Milwaukee in 2021, both in the first round and both also ending on the floor of Heat Home.
It was faster. Cleveland – which used a first 33-5 race to explode the Open match 3 – led 43-14 at the end of the first quarter before Davion Mitchell beat the buzzer with a 3 -point. The margin of 26 points corresponded to the worst district of the history of the Heat elimination series; It was the second best margin in any district in the history of the CAVS qualifiers.
And the advance was just growing.
It looked like a team of 64 victories that led the East Wire-to Wire to face a 10th place finisher which was to win two game games just to enter the tournament.
“We came here with good mentality and once again, our maturity, our leadership, everything we talked about all year round,” said Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson. “We do not seem to have disappointment. It’s rare.”
Cleveland’s advance was 39 – 72-33 – at halftime, the third advance after two quarters in the history of the NBA qualifiers. The only time at half-time leads more than that: Cleveland by 41 on Boston on May 19, 2017 and Detroit by 40 on Washington on April 26, 1987.
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