CLEVELAND, Ohio — Forget the former teammate trash talk. Bring on Miami.
The Cavs’ opponent in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs has finally been determined.
They will host the Miami Heat for Game 1 Sunday night at 7 p.m. inside Rocket Arena.
Miami, which won two consecutive road games in the annual play-in tournament, became the first 10 seed ever to advance to the playoffs with a 123-114 overtime win against the Atlanta Hawks.
“Historically, they’re a great team,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said when asked about the impending matchup with Cleveland. “Offensively, they’re very good. But we’re excited for the challenge.”
Game 2 of the series is scheduled for Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on NBA TV. Game 3 will be Saturday in Miami at 1 p.m. on TNT. The other times in this best-of-seven have not yet been decided.
After finishing 64-18 during the regular season, the Cavs earned the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. They have been off since Sunday’s finale, spending the first few days resting and recharging for that they believe will be a deep playoff run.
On Friday, a few hours before Atlanta and Miami tipped off, Cleveland held an intrasquad scrimmage and discussed the challenge of not knowing its round one opponent.
“We’ve really just been focusing on ourselves,” said De’Andre Hunter who stayed mum when asked if he preferred to play his former Hawks team. “We’ve been watching films on ourselves, just trying to tighten things up. And then after tonight, that’s when we’ll figure out the game plan for whatever team we play.”
A matchup with the Hawks would’ve added an interesting layer of intrigue after the Cavs acquired Hunter from the Hawks in a midseason trade for Caris LeVert and Georges Niang.
“It would be fun and competitive with Caris and Georges there,” reserve Isaac Okoro said. “Caris wouldn’t talk trash. It would be more Georges. But I don’t take anything Georges says seriously.”
No need to worry about that anymore.
Cleveland, which enters the postseason as one of the championship favorites, went 2-1 versus Miami in the regular season.
