CLEVELAND, Ohio — Are you not entertained?
The Cavs clinched a playoff berth Wednesday night with their 112-107 victory over the Miami Heat at Rocket Arena. They are on a 12-game win streak for the third time this season.
After leading for the majority of the contest and storming out to a 17-point lead in the second quarter, the Cavs sent the fans on a roller coaster ride of emotions.
It started in the first quarter when Cleveland displayed a video tribute to 2016 NBA champion Kevin Love. The former Cavalier received a standing ovation as he pointed to his ring finger to remind fans of the time that they had together.
Then the Cavs pulled away, exercising their slow start demons with a 36-point first quarter.
But, as everyone in the building was well aware, Erik Spoelstra and the Heat wouldn’t go away so easily.
“I have so much respect for the program,” Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson said pregame. “I say this every time we play them and it’s worth repeating, they’re so well coached, they’re not going to beat themselves. And it’s always a challenge when you’re going against a great coach, and I don’t know if Spo gets enough credit for how much he adjusts.
“If we have to play this team in the first round, we know we got our hands full.”
The Heat stormed back in the second quarter with a 13-point run of their own to make it a four-point contest. The two teams scored the same amount of points for the next two quarters heading into the finale.
Miami silenced the home crowd by suffocating the Cavs and holding them to seven points in the first six minutes of the final quarter while they went on an 18-7 run.
But Donovan Mitchell wouldn’t let the opportunity to clinch a playoff berth in front of the home crowd go to waste.
“He knows the moment he has to pick it up, and I don’t know how he knows, but he knows,” Atkinson said. “I’m not on the sidelines saying, ‘Hey, time to pick it up Don.’ Or we will feel it, run a play for him. But it’s more he sees and it’s not in a selfish way. It’s like, ‘OK, now I have to help the team.’”
Mitchell’s squad needed a leader and organizer in the final frame and he showed up.
He scored eight of his 26 points in the fourth, and Darius Garland helped facilitate the offense with six of his 10 assists in the final period.
Then, on a potential game-tying 3-point attempt, Max Strus, who had also hit two huge 3s in the fourth, forced Duncan Robinson to step out of bounds and sent the arena into chaos.
This Cavs team likes to keep it interesting, but they’ve proven that they can win in almost any way imaginable.
They have grown beyond the need for comfort. They can win fast. They can win slow. They can win in a shootout or a grind-it-out slugfest.
Wednesday night had a little bit of everything.
**Up Next**
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The Cavs travel to Charlotte to play the Hornets on Friday. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. Eastern.