On April 22, 2025, I published an article about the odd statistical profile of the 2024-25 Miami Heat. Thanks to the NBA Playoff play-in tournament, the Heat, which had the 10th best record in the Eastern Conference at 37-45, stumbled into the NBA Playoffs as the Eastern Conference 8-seed. Despite their record, the Heat actually out-scored their opponents on the season and had a positive SRS (takes into account margin and strength of schedule) and Net Rating (points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100 possessions). My article examined whether the Heat had the worst record of any NBA Playoff team in the 16-team era, which began in the 1983-84 season, to have either a positive SRS or Net Rating (they did).
The Heat’s reward for making the NBA Playoffs was a matchup with the top seed in the Eastern Conference, the 64-18 Cleveland Cavaliers. When I wrote the article, the Cavaliers already led the best-of-seven series 1-0. I did not make any special predictions since I do not closely follow the NBA these days and have not watched any games this season, but I offered reasons for caution for people who may have been hoping that the Heat would make a good series of it:
[B]ased on statistics, I note that Miami’s first-round opponent, the East’s top-seed Cleveland Cavaliers, are better than the average NBA champion in terms of record (64-18), SRS (+8.81), and Net (+9.5). Moreover, as of the publication date of this article, the Heat trail the series 1-0 after the Cavaliers won game one at home 121-100. While the Heat may be slightly better than their 37-45 record would indicate, there is a gulf between their regular season and that of the Cavaliers. Heat optimists may point to the fact that the Heat made the NBA Finals as an 8-seed with a negative SRS and Net Rating just two seasons ago, I would submit that none of Miami’s opponents (including the champion Denver Nuggets) had the 2024-25 Cavaliers’ regular season profile and this Heat team does not boast one of the top 10 players in the NBA, having traded Jimmy Butler, the mercurial star of the 2022-23 team, in the middle of the season.
Nicholas A. Ferrell
Of course, I added that there is a reason they play the games. In an earlier article on the worst NBA Playoff teams in the 16-team era (by SRS), I told the story of how the 2007-08 Boston Celtics, which were even better statistically than the 2024-25 Cavaliers (Boston was 66-16 with a +9.3 SRS and +11.2 Net Rating) were dragged to the full seven game distance by not one but two teams with negative SRS and Net Ratings, very nearly losing to the negative SRS/Net 2007-08 Cleveland Cavaliers in the second of those series before eventually winning the NBA Championship. Of course, the Celtics’ struggles in the first two rounds of the 2007-08 Playoffs were notable because they were unexpected.
The 2024-25 Cavaliers betrayed no intention of putting the miles in against the Heat. Cleveland won games one and two at home 121-100 and 121-112 to take a 2-0 lead going into Miami. In Miami, things would go from bad to very ugly for the Heat. The Cavaliers won game three by 37 points, 124-87, to take a 3-0 lead and push the Heat to the brink of elimination. The Associated Press published an article about game three on April 26, 2025, which included some interesting statistics.
[T]he Cavaliers … handed the Heat their worst playoff loss with a 124-87 win Saturday to take a 3-0 lead…
The Miami Heat have a long NBA Playoff History. The franchise entered the NBA in the 1988-89 season and made the Playoffs for the the first time in 1991-92 (albeit as the second worst playoff teams of the 16-team playoff era by regular season SRS). They won their first two playoff series in 1996-97 before falling to the Eventual Champion Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference Finals. Miami won its first NBA Championship in 2005-06 behind Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal. From 2010-11 through 2013-14, the Heat made four consecutive appearances in the NBA Finals behind LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, winning their second and third championships in 2011-12 and 2012-13. Miami would make two more NBA Finals appearances in 2019-20 and 2022-23, with the latter being the only time in the 16-team playoff era where a team with a negative regular season SRS and Net Rating made the Finals. The Heat have made the playoffs in 26 out of their 37 seasons in the NBA, but never before in the franchise’s many playoff games had it lost by as many as 37 points.
Bookmark that fact for now. Let us turn to the team that won game three.
It’s the 11th time that a Cavaliers team has taken a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series — the other 10 were all in the LeBron James eras in Cleveland, and they all ended in 4-0 sweeps.
This is a fun stat on three levels. Firstly, I would not have guessed that the Cavaliers never once had a 3-0 series lead before the arrival of LeBron James, now of the Los Angeles Lakers and once of the Miami Heat, in 2003-04. There were some very good Cavaliers teams in the late 80s and early 90s, including one which led the NBA in Net Rating. Of course, the 1988-89 Cavaliers, which led the NBA in SRS and Net Rating, was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, so perhaps that explains things. The other half of the stat is also interesting. Cleveland had gone up 3-0 on 10 times during the LeBron James era (2003-04 through 2009-10 and 2014-15 through 2017-18) and finished off the sweep on all 10 occasions. While the James-era Cavaliers had their playoff ups and downs, they were not interested in gentleman’s sweeps.
Let us bookmark this fact too.
Game four was played in Miami on April 28, 2025. Would the Heat bounce back from the worst playoff game loss in franchise history? Well, at halftime the Heat found themselves trailing 72-33, with the 39-point margin after two quarters being bigger than their 37-point loss in game three, which was the third-biggest margin at the half in NBA playoff history (the 2016-17 Cavaliers hold the record with a 41-point lead at halftime of a 2017 playoff game). The Heat kept the margin down in the second half relative to the first, but note my careful wording. The score at the final buzzer was 138-83. One game after losing by a franchise playoff record 37, the Heat lost game four by a new franchise playoff record 55. The Cavaliers extended their perfect record of converting 3-0 playoff leads into sweeps to 11-0, with this being the first time they have done so without LeBron James. Moreover, Cleveland’s 55-point victory was the fourth most lopsided playoff win in NBA history as of April 28, 2025. They were four points away from the record, which is shared by the 1955-56 Minneapolis Lakers (133-75 over the St. Louis Hawks) and the 2008-09 Denver Nuggets (121-63 over the New Orleans Hornets).
(Fun fact: The 1955-56 Minneapolis Lakers lost their series against the St. Louis Hawks 2-1, winning game two 133-75 but losing games one and three by identical scores of 116-115.)
While the Cavaliers came up short of having the biggest single-game margin of victory in NBA Playoff history, they did set the single playoff series scoring margin record:
Cleveland won the four games by a combined 122 points. The previous record: a 121-point combined win by Denver over New Orleans in 2009.
That 2009 Denver-New Orleans series was a gentleman’s sweep, with New Orleans narrowly winning game three 95-93 right before dropping game four by 58. The Nuggets’ margin was one point better than the 2025 Cavaliers over the Heat in its four wins (+123 to +122), but their two-pont loss in game three gives the 2025 Cavaliers the record for single-series scoring margin.
Because my original article about the 2024-25 Heat was prompted in part by their 37-45 record-defying positive Net Rating, let us conclude with playoff net rating. The Cavaliers scored 137.2 points per 100 possessions in the series while the Heat scored just 104.0. This gives the Cavaliers a +33.2 Net Rating for the series, leaving the Heat at -33.2. For reference, the NBA’s regular season averages for points scored and allowed per 100 possessions was 114.5, and the playoff average through April 29, 2025, was 113.1.
While I suspect the Cavaliers will face stiffer competition going forward, the scale of their destruction of what had been for the most part an average Miami Heat team (granting all the caveats attached to the Heat’s mid-season trade of Jimmy Butler) would seem to bode well for their future. The Denver Nuggets, which held the previous record for biggest playoff series margin of victory, went on to reach the 2009 Western Conference Finals before falling in a competitive six-game series against the eventual Champion Los Angeles Lakers. As for the Heat — being eliminated from the playoffs by losing your final two games by a combined 92 points is not the best way to enter fishing season, but the Heat tend to find a way.
(Aside: Was this the Cleveland Cavaliers’ belated revenge for LeBron James’ 2010 decision?)
