There is more than a month of regular-season basketball left to be played this season, but one team has already clinched its spot in the 2025 playoffs. The Cleveland Cavaliers are officially in the top six, but it took a wild finish for them to get there.
Leading the Heat by three points with 18.4 seconds remaining, Cleveland was a single stop away from victory. Instead, Duncan Robinson went up for a game-tying 3-pointer. Swish.
But there was a problem. In an extremely rare call under the circumstances, Robinson was called out of bounds as his foot touched the line before he went up with the shot. Robinson’s clutch make was wiped off of the board and Cleveland sank two free throws on the other end to seal the 112-107 victory.
The call will surely rankle Heat fans given their history with such calls. In Game 7 of the 2022 Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics, a Max Strus 3-pointer was taken off of the board in a similar manner. In a cruel coincidence, take a closer look at who was guarding Robinson on this shot. That’s right, it was Strus, now a member of the Cavaliers.
The win is the 12th straight for Cleveland. For most teams, this would represent the best stretch of a season. For Cleveland? It’s business as usual. This is the third separate 12-game winning streak the Cavs have had this season, joining the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks as the only teams ever to win 12 or more consecutive games at least three times in a season. That includes their 15-0 start to the season, tied for the second-best in league history.
At 52-10, Cleveland is on pace to win 69 games on the season. Only three teams have ever done so in league history: the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors and well as the 1995-96 and 1996-97 Chicago Bulls.
The Cavaliers have been making history all season, so it feels fitting that they’d make a bit more of it as they become the first team to clinch a playoff spot. With an eight-game lead over the Boston Celtics in the loss column in the Eastern Conference with only 20 games remaining, they are a near lock to eventually earn the No. 1 seed in the East and ensure home-court advantage throughout their push to return to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2018.
