Cavaliers thrash Miami to win play-off series 4-0

Cleveland’s first-round play-off series victory over the Miami Heat earned them a 4-0 victory and a spot in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The visiting Cavaliers won by the fourth-largest winning margin in an NBA play-off game with the help of Donovan Mitchell, who added 22 points, De’Andre Hunter, who added 19 points, Ty Jerome, who added 18 points, and Evan Mobley, who added 17 points.

Mitchell told TNT television, “We came out here with a goal in mind, to keep our foot on their throat and neck and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball.”

The 55-point victory overpowered the previous best-of-seven series record of 37 points set in the third game.

We were applauded, but Erik Spoelstra, a Miami coach, said, “We were humbled, but they had so much to do with how we looked.”

“None of us would have anticipated that after our two play-ins, this series would have turned out this way.” They only added more depth to the situation. These past two games left us without.

In the following round, the Cavaliers will face either the Milwaukee Bucks or the Indiana Pacers, with the latter having a 3-1 series lead.

The Golden State Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets 109-106 at home to take a 3-1 lead over the Warriors in the Western Conference first-round play-off series in San Francisco.

After missing Game Three with a pelvic injury, Jimmy Butler returned for the Warriors, scoring 14 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter. Teammate Brandin Podziemski also made six three-pointers in his 26 points.

The Warriors’ first half-time lead was seven, before the Warriors went on an 18-point run at the start of the third quarter, but the game was tied at 104 with one minute, 20 seconds left.

For the Rockets, Fred VanVleet scored 24 of his 25 points from three-point range, but he missed a long-range shot that would have tied the game in the closing seconds.