Heat fall to Cavaliers
LeBron James ejected for first time ever.
CLEVELAND — Well this certainly was different.
On a night Kevin Love at will in the first half, a night the Cleveland Cavaliers pushed their lead to 34 points in the third quarter, the angriest man in the building was neither pacing the Miami Heat sideline nor wearing Heat colors.
Instead, it was LeBron James fuming after not receiving the benefit of a foul call on a third-quarter scoring attempt, ejected for the first time in his 1,082-game career when referee Kane Fitzgerald decided he had heard enough with 1:59 to play in that period.
With the Cavaliers up by 23 at the time of the ejection, everything else in what turned into a 108-97 Cleveland victory proved moot.
“However he left the arena is pretty much how I felt inside,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
The final score was no indiscored cation of the Cavaliers’ dominance.
“It started right from the beginning,” Spoelstra said. “We
were playing on our heels and they felt like a different than us -- tonight. It’s tonight, they’re a better basketball team than us.
“That’s where we want to get to, but you can see the level that they can go to, just in execution and cohesiveness and Love was obviously very good, particularly in that first half, to create all that separation.”
Love, needed only for his first-half dramatics, closed with 38 points.
“I mean he made some tough shots in the first quarter,” Heat center Hassan Whiteside said.
“It’s not nothing I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen it against Al Horford in Boston. It’s not nothing I’ve never seen before. He got a couple of free throws early and they try to bait you to go help on LeBron. That’s how they got you.”
In a theme familiar to Heat followers, when James went out, Dwayne Wade stepped in to take care of the scoring for Cleveland, closing with 17 points.
The game ended with Wade swapping jerseys with Heat captain and close friend Udonis Haslem.
“NFL guys do it all the time. Why not?” Haslem said. “We talked about it, but the one thing we did say was his would probably be sweaty and mine would probably be dry. So that was the one thing we did have right.”
Haslem played the final 5:09, when the game already was out of reach.
Guard Dion Waiters led the Heat with 21 points, with center Bam Adebayo adding 19 and forward Josh Richardson 15.
Adebayo closed 7 of 7 from the field with six rebounds in his 18 minutes.
“Bam — and the guys even mentioned it right now -- not a lot of positives coming out of this game, but Bam was one of ’em, on both ends of the court,” Spoelstra said. “And most of the guys said something about it right after the game in our huddle. He’s been putting in a lot of work to prepare himself. He never knows exactly when he’s going to play. It’s not easy to come into a game like this.
“But that’s a great compliment when your peers are mentioning after the game. And the way you played and the way you competed leaves an imprint on their minds. So that’s something he’ll definitely be able to build on.”
Adebayo was appreciative of the appreciation.
“It just shows, I’m in the gym with my teammates. We’re in there every day. We just came up short tonight,” he said. “I’m glad I had a big impact game, but we came up the L.”
Spoelstra said before the game that in a league of outside-shooting big men, Whiteside would have to be up to the challenge of defending Love.
Unlike Friday’s victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves at the start of this four-game trip that concludes today against the New York Knicks, the Heat did not have the luxury of utilizing Justise Winslow on Love, as they did against Karl-Anthony Towns.
So with Winslow tied up with the defensive assignment against James, Love rolled all the way to 22 points in his 10 minutes, 38 seconds in the first quarter.
The 22 tied for the most in a first quarter against the Heat in the franchise’s 30 seasons, matching the total scored by Joe Johnson for the Brooklyn Nets against the Heat on Jan. 10, 2014.
Love would finish the first half with 32 points, matching the most in a first half against the Heat, set by Fat Lever with the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 9, 1989 in the Heat’s first season and then tied by the Orlando Magic’s Tracy McGrady on March 23, 2003. The record for any half against the Heat remains 37 by Vince Carter for the New Jersey Nets on Dec. 23, 2005.
But this wasn’t just Love against Whiteside. Kelly Olynyk was up next in the first quarter, called for three fouls in his 4:26 stint and forced to the bench. That led to Adebayo getting the Love assignment before the end of the first period, the first-round pick’s first action in four games.
With Waiters scoring 13 points in the first period, the Heat were able to close the quarter within 35-24.
But that’s when the Cavaliers, playing a night after winning on the road against the Philadelphia 76ers, took off, pushing to a 75-49 halftime lead.
The 75 points were five off the most by an opponent against the Heat in a first half.