Heat picks up most impressive win of its season, defeating Cavaliers. Takeaways and details

Five takeaways from the Miami Heat’s impressive 122-113 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers (21-4) on Sunday night at Kaseya Center to extend its winning streak to three games and improve to 3-0 on its four-game homestand. The Heat (12-10) now enters a three-day break before closing the homestand on Thursday against the Toronto Raptors:

The Heat picked up its best win of the season and is trending in a positive direction.

The Cavaliers entered Sunday with the NBA’s top record and as one of only five teams around the NBA with both a top-10 offensive rating and top-10 defensive rating this season.

But the Heat handed the Cavaliers their fourth loss of the season behind an excellent performance from Tyler Herro and quality team-wide play on both ends of the court, continuing Miami’s best stretch of the season. The Heat has won three straight games after a 9-10 start to the season.

“I think the locker room sees the possibilities with this team,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We just have to keep on going.”

The Heat led for most of Sunday’s game, entering halftime with an eight-point advantage and pulling ahead by as many as 15 points in a third quarter that Herro dominated.

Herro exploded for 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field, 4-of-4 shooting on threes and 3-of-3 shooting from the foul line in the third quarter to lift the Heat to a 10-point lead entering the fourth period.

The Cavaliers made a late push, cutting the deficit to five points with 8:28 to play.

But that’s the closest the Cavaliers would get, as the Heat responded with a 22-12 run to pull ahead by 15 points with 52.2 seconds remaining and put the game away.

Herro finished the win with a game-high 34 points on 10-of-19 shooting from the field, 5-of-9 shooting from three-point range and 9-of-9 shooting from the foul line, six rebounds and seven assists. He scored all 34 of his points in the first three quarters.

Duncan Robinson added 23 points on 4-of-6 shooting from behind the arc.

Bam Adebayo contributed 16 points, 13 rebounds and six assists.

Jimmy Butler closed with 18 points, three rebounds, five assists and two steals.

Darius Garland scored a team-high 23 points for the Cavaliers, but Donovan Mitchell was limited to 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting from the field for Cleveland.

In the win, the Heat totaled 122 points on 47.7 percent shooting from the field, 16-of-37 (43.2 percent) shooting from three-point range and 24-of-26 (92.3 percent) shooting from the foul line against a Cavaliers defense that entered the game with the NBA’s ninth-best defensive rating. The Heat also outscored the Cavaliers 19-10 in second-chance points.

The Heat scored at a rate of 123.2 points per 100 possessions in the victory for a single-game offensive rating that would be the best season-long offensive rating in the NBA among the 30 teams.

Both teams were playing on the second night of back-to-backs Sunday, with the Cavaliers coming off a road win over the Charlotte Hornets and the Heat coming off a home victory over the Phoenix Suns on Saturday.

“It was a consistent game,” Spoelstra said of Sunday’s win. “We were able to sustain it and earn the win, which the guys feel good about the last 48 hours.”

The Heat took advantage of an injury to one of the Cavaliers’ best players.

One night after scoring a career-high 41 points in a win over the Hornets on Saturday, Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley couldn’t finish Sunday’s game in Miami.

Mobley sprained his left ankle early in the game, but he was able to finish the first half before being ruled out for the second half because of the injury. He recorded four points on 2-of-4 shooting from the field, three rebounds and one steal in 12 first-half minutes prior to exiting the contest.

Georges Niang began the second half in Mobley’s place in the Cavaliers’ starting lineup. Without Mobley’s elite defense on the court, the Heat scored 63 second-half points on 50 percent shooting from the field and 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) shooting on threes.

“I know Mobley being out, that changes things,” Spoelstra said. “But you have to be able to sustain a high level of basketball on both ends of the court.”

Mobley entered Sunday averaging 18.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.6 blocks per game this season.

“We know he’s excellent on the defensive end and we all felt his presence being missed,” Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen said of playing without Mobley in the second half.

The Cavaliers were also without forward Isaac Okoro, among a few others, on Sunday. Okoro, who missed his second straight contest because of a left knee contusion, has started in 14 of his 21 appearances this season.

The Heat’s new starting lineup continues to produce positive results.

The Heat went with the starting lineup of Herro, Robinson, Butler, Haywood Highsmith and Adebayo on Sunday for the ninth time in the last 10 games. The only time that the Heat didn’t use this starting lineup during this stretch came when Butler was out in Monday’s loss to the Boston Celtics.

The Heat posted a 6-2 record in this group’s first eight starts together this season, as this lineup outscored teams by 10.8 points per 100 possessions during that span.

That success continued against the Cavaliers, as the Heat opened Sunday’s game on a 13-6 run before making its first substitution of the night with 6:30 left in the first quarter.

The Heat’s starters then outscored the Cavaliers by two points over the first 6:06 of the second half before turning to its bench for the first time in the third quarter.

The Heat’s starting group outscored the Cavaliers by eight points 12 minutes together during Sunday’s win.

Miami is now 7-2 this season when using this starting lineup.

The Heat’s depth also made an appearance against the Cavaliers, with Thomas Bryant and Dru Smith playing important minutes off the bench.

The Heat used Kevin Love, Bryant, Smith, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Terry Rozier off the bench to complete its 10-man rotation against the Cavaliers.

There was one noticeable change to the bench rotation on Sunday, as Bryant played as the backup center ahead of Love for most of the game.

Love played in his usual backup center role when Adebayo went to the bench for the first time in the first quarter. The Cavaliers blitzed the Heat, though, outscoring Miami by 11 points during Love’s 4:50 stint.

So when Adebayo went to the bench for his second rest of the night in the second quarter, the Heat turned to Bryant to play in his place.

Bryant also played as the Heat’s backup center in the second half on Sunday, with Love not re-entering the game after his first stint of the night.

Bryant was effective, considering the Heat played the Cavaliers even in his seven minutes on Sunday while Adebayo was on the bench. Bryant also contributed two points, one rebound and two blocks in the win.

“The way they were shifting us and moving us around, it’s not an indictment on K-Love at all,” Spoelstra said, pointing to the matchup as the reason why he went away from Love early in Sunday’s game. “It’s just what they do for this particular night was kind of getting us scrambled. So we went a different way, and TB gave us a spark. We were able to stabilize.”

Smith also gave the Heat solid minutes off the bench on Sunday, turning in his second straight standout performance after recording seven points, four rebounds, two steals and one block in Saturday’s win over the Suns.

Smith totaled 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting on threes, four rebounds and two assists in 26 minutes in Sunday’s win over the Cavaliers.

The Heat had 14 of its 17 players available on Sunday. The three unavailable Heat players were Pelle Larsson (sprained right ankle), Josh Christopher (G League) and Kel’el Ware (G League).

Larsson’s absence created an opportunity for Smith to play extended minutes in each of the last two games, and Smith has taken advantage. He made timely plays down the stretch on Sunday, grabbing two offensive rebounds and hitting a corner three all during one possession to extend the Heat’s lead to 13 with 4:22 left in the fourth quarter.

“That was a possession where anybody could know this, hey that was winning basketball right there,” Spoelstra said. “Two offensive rebounds and then you hit the corner three. But Dru does so many of those kinds of things that probably most people don’t see, but they do impact winning.”

The only available Heat players who did not get into Sunday’s game were Alec Burks, Keshad Johnson, Nikola Jovic and Josh Richardson.

After being pulled from the starting lineup and moved to a bench role, Rozier continues to deliver up-and-down play.

Rozier started in his first 12 appearances of the season, but Sunday marked his eighth straight appearance off the bench.

Rozier finished Sunday’s win with 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field and 2-of-5 shooting on threes, nine rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes just one night after going scoreless and taking three field-goal attempts in 16 minutes off the bench during Saturday’s win over the Suns.

Following that quiet performance against the Suns, Rozier took a more aggressive approach against the Cavaliers. He tied Herro with a team-high nine field-goal attempts in Sunday’s first half before taking five more shots in the second half.

“All my coaches and all my teammates always just remind me to be who I am and telling me to attack and be myself,” Rozier said. “I just got to do that every night.”

Rozier and Smith each played the entire fourth quarter on Sunday.