Winners and Losers – Cavs at Heat – Stunner at the buzzer

The Cleveland Cavaliers snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Hey, at least this isn’t something they do very often.

Let’s get this out of the way.

The Cavs somehow, after playing a game in which they had no business winning, found themselves on the verge of forcing a second overtime after a miraculous three-pointer from Donovan Mitchell (which deserves an honorary WINNER even if it didn’t result in a win).

Tied with 0.4 seconds to play, the Miami Heat had one final chance to win the game. Cleveland proceeded to hand them this opportunity on a platter.

Listen, I don’t know what Johnnie Bryant told his huddle. To me, this looks like the Cavs have been instructed not to switch anything. That seems less than ideal — considering there’s only 0.4 seconds, and you aren’t worried about conceding any mismatches. But hey, what do I know?

The Cavs don’t switch. And they also don’t put Jarrett Allen into the game — who could have stood below the basket and deterred the obvious pass to the rim. They don’t even put Evan Mobley at the rim… they instead play this as if it’s a “no threes” scenario and load up so heavily on the perimeter that no one is in the same area code as Andrew Wiggins as he dunks the ball for the win.

You have to do a lot of things wrong to give up such an open look at the end of a game. The Cavs managed to check all of those boxes.

There has been a shift in the NBA this season. Teams are playing faster and picking up defensively farther down the court. You can thank the 2024-25 Indiana Pacers for this trend, but the Cavaliers are one team that shouldn’t be very happy about it.

The Cavs are allowing the 11th most points per possession in transition since October 31st. They’ve felt the pressure from teams like the Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls and now the Miami Heat. All of which are in the top 10 for transition frequency during this stretch. It’s no coincidence that the Cavs had trouble with each of those teams.

There’s a reason the league is copying Indiana’s success from last year. If you play hard, run as often as possible, and lean into nightly three-point variance by shooting with volume — then you’ll grab a bunch of wins against teams that weren’t ready for a track meet.

It doesn’t help that the Cavs have played three games in four days.

These two topics go hand-in-hand. When the opponent is running like wild, and you can’t hit a shot — the offense is more likely to grind to a halt. It’s natural for players to start slowing the game down by over-dribbling and under-passing. One way to catch your breath is to highjack the offense and dribble the air out of the ball.

The Cavs offense fell victim to this for long stretches of the game, but especially in the second quarter. A lack of ball movement led to poor shot selection — which compounded the issue by leading to more misses and more runout opportunities for the Heat.

Sometimes the easy way out only makes things more difficult.

The Cavs were dead in the water. Darius Garland left with an injury. Kenny Atkinson was ejected. And the team, in general, had zero momentum as the Heat built a double-digit lead.

Then Sam Merrill happened.

Merrill began the game shooting 0-6, struggling as much as anyone. But a healthy heat check would bring the Cavs right back into this game. Merrill hit four consecutive three-pointers to single-handedly erase a 12-point deficit.

As I said, the Cavs had no business being in this game. They played well below their standards for the majority of it. If it wasn’t for Merrill’s fourth quarter flurry, we wouldn’t even be talking about overtime.

There is nothing good about this one. Garland, after limping throughout most of the second quarter, would leave the game in the second half with a left toe injury. Presumably, the same toe that he underwent surgery for during the offseason.

It’s unclear what happened. Will this linger long-term for Garland, or was it just a small setback? Did he rush back from his surgery too soon? Or was this a fluke reaggreviation? We won’t know for a while. But, it will be hard for any Cavs fan to rest easy until we find out.

Garland’s health is much more significant than the outcome of this game.