Miami Heat trounce Cleveland Cavaliers off glow of Dwyane Wade’s Day
The Miami Heat had a job to do on Saturday and boy, did they ever do it. While they are the better team anyway, they seemed to have a little extra to give.
The Miami Heat were fresh off of a terrible loss in the Peach State on Thursday, for their first game coming off the All-Star break, so Saturday night’s contest was a must-win to get things back on track like they are supposed to be. As if the pressure of needing a win in general wasn’t enough, Saturday would also unofficially be Dwyane Wade Day as Saturday night’s contest would be the one to see his signature number “3” jersey elevated and immortalized in the rafters of “his house”, American Airlines Arena.
While the old adage goes, pressure busts pipes or makes diamonds, that was definitely the situation here. While the circumstances were ripe for a letdown, with this being the D-Wade game, with the letdown the other night in Atlanta, with the team still missing Tyler Herro and Meyers Leonard, and with the news that Jimmy Butler would also not suit up for this contest, things went the complete opposite way.
The Miami Heat came out gunning and never looked back. They started the game flawlessly, making their first nine attempts to go 9-9 before missing their 10th attempt as a team. They jumped on top of the Cleveland Cavaliers early and never let off, carrying a high double-digit lead throughout most of if not the entire game.
The greatness that lives inside of Dwyane Wade must have grown too volatile to contain on this night, as it seemed as though it had jumped off of Flash and onto the bodies of the current Miami Heat players as hosts because they were flat-out stupendous on Saturday night.
The Miami Heat scored 82 points in the first half, a franchise record, before eventually going on to take the game by 19 at 105-124. It was a complete team effort with seven Heat players scoring in double-digits, including all five starters plus Goran Dragic and Jae Crowder. The Miami Heat were just too much for Cleveland on Saturday and we wouldn’t have had it any other way on WoW‘s day.
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The Heat will get Sunday off before then hopping on a plane to turn around and travel to Cleveland themselves for the second part of this home and home set between the two teams. It was almost perfect symmetry that the Cavaliers were apart of this night as well, as if it weren’t for them doing what can only be looked at as the right thing in trading D-Wade back home when they did, these last several years and our final moments with Flash wouldn’t have been as perfect and as flawless seeming as they were. Either way, here is their moment of gratitude, because we are looking forward to a repeat performance of Saturday on Monday in Cleveland.