The teams enter this postseason having never faced each other in the playoffs as Miami has faced every other Eastern Conference team in the postseason except Cleveland. PROJECTED STARTERS HEAT G Tyler Herro G Alec Burks C Kel'el Ware F Andrew Wiggins F Bam Adebayo Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on the season: "We’ve been through a lot.

The Eastern Conference’s top seed, the Cleveland Cavaliers, will take on the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, who advanced out of the play-in tournament, in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. This marks the first time the two franchises will square off in the postseason. Which is good, because they haven’t really had anything in common until now.

In one corner, the Cleveland Cavaliers stormed out to 15 wins in their first 15 games and never really looked back, capturing the East’s No. 1 seed and, along the way, becoming just the second team in history to produce three separate winning streaks of at least 12 games.