The Miami Heat’s season ended mercilessly as the franchise lost by 55 points on its home floor at the hands of the No. 1 seeded Cleveland Cavaliers.
The four-game sweep featured 37 and 55-point losses at home in consecutive games to end the season, which will undoubtedly leave a bad taste in coach Erik Spoelstra’s mouth heading into the offseason.
“Damn it was humbling,” Spoelstra began. “This series was humbling. These last two games were embarrassing. But Cleveland is also a very good team. We won whatever we won. They won 65. We’re as irrational as we usually are thinking that we have a chance to win this series and they showed us why we weren’t ready for that.”
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The Heat will go back to the drawing board with an important offseason ahead. It was a tumultuous year for Miami, dealing with a disgruntled star in Jimmy Butler before ultimately trading him to the Golden State Warriors at the deadline. Miami lacked a true No. 1 star during the second half of the season, but made the play-in tournament anyway and ended up with the No. 8 seed in the East.
Now Pat Riley, Erik Spoelstra and the rest of the organization will go back to work to try to close the gap in the East. Two years removed from an NBA Finals appearance, Miami doesn’t seem close to returning any time soon.
