The odds were stacked against the Miami Heat to pick up a win in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday. After all, the Heat lost Game 1 of the best-of-seven series by more than 20 points, and the Cavaliers lost just seven games at home in the entirety of the 2024-25 regular season.
Yet, the Heat almost pulled off the improbable and tied the series up. Miami was down by 13 points at the start of the fourth quarter but cut the deficit to just two with only a few minutes remaining in the contest.
The Cavaliers still won the game by nine points, but one unidentified player for Cleveland gave Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra his flowers after Miami nearly pulled off the upset.
“Spo gonna Spo,” one Cavs player said in the locker room.
Spoelstra is one of the more talented and accomplished head coaches in the NBA today, as he’s won two titles and coached in several NBA Finals during his time holding the head-coaching reins in Miami. He also has an impressive track record of helping his teams overachieve in the playoffs and getting the most out of his players.
Miami, for example, was the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference when the team reached the NBA Finals in the 2023 playoffs. The Heat came up short of a title, but they still put together one of the more miraculous playoff runs in recent memory, and it came just a few years after they made the 2020 NBA Finals as the Eastern Conference’s No. 5 seed.
Last season, the Heat, as the No. 8 seed again, were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics, but they were able to steal a win before the series came to an end. Miami won Game 2 in Boston, evening the series at the time and temporarily giving the Heat home-court advantage. The Celtics ultimately ended the series in five games.
Even though the Heat are clearly outmatched against the Cavaliers from a talent standpoint in their current series, folks shouldn’t be surprised if Miami still wins a game or two before getting bounced, partly because of who the Heat have patrolling the sidelines. Game 3 of the series will tip off on Saturday.
