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The Cleveland Cavaliers put an exclamation point on their sweep of the Miami Heat on Monday night with an historic 138-83 win.
Cleveland will move on to the second round of the playoffs.
Three starters and three bench players were in double figures for the Cavaliers. Donovan Mitchell led the way with 22 points and five assists, while Jarrett Allen had 14 points and 12 rebounds. De’Andre Hunter led the bench scoring with 19 points. Ty Jerome added 18.
Cleveland led by as many as 60 points in the game. The 55-point margin in Game 4 was the fourth-biggest playoff win in NBA history.
The Cavaliers’ 92-point margin between Games 3 and 4 was the largest point differential in two games in playoff history, as well as the 122-point differential in the entire series, according to ESPN.
“We came out here with a goal in mind,” Mitchell said.
Heat guard Nikola Jovic led Miami with 24 points as Bam Adebayo added 13. However, Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra summed the defeat up perfectly.
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“Damn, it was humbling. This series was humbling. These last two games were embarrassing,” Spoelstra said. “But Cleveland’s also a very good team. … They showed us why we weren’t ready for that.”
Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley piled on at halftime.
“I try not to ever use the word quit or choke… This is quitting at its finest right here,” he said on TNT. “I bet if we went to their house, all their stuff is already packed. … If you lost by (37) the last game, you can’t stay in Miami … If you lose by 37 and come back and lose by 40, you can’t stay in town.”
Cleveland looked as dangerous as advertised during the series.
Mitchell had the only 30-point game for the Cavaliers during the series, doing it Games 1 and 2. The team never had a game with fewer than 20 team assists. In Game 4, Cleveland shot 54.7% from the field.
“We came down here with the right mentality and, again, our maturity, our leadership, all that stuff we’ve been talking about all year,” Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “We don’t seem to have letdowns. That’s rare.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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