If you don’t learn history, you are doomed to repeat it.
Sometimes, however, you learn it and want to repeat it.
Consider that the last two times the Miami Heat started 4-0 at home, they reached the NBA Finals.
Once was unexpected, the 2019-20 team that was rolling until about three weeks prior to the Covid break, and then picked it up and went to the Bubble Finals behind Jimmy Butler. The other seemed ordained, as prime LeBron James led the Big 3 Heat to a strong start, and then 27-game winning streak on the way to a second straight title.
The last three times the Heat started 4-0 at home:
2025-26
2019-20*
2012-13*
*made the NBA Finals pic.twitter.com/SZmQOahyqW
— 𝙃𝙀𝘼𝙏 𝙉𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 (@HeatvsHaters) November 9, 2025
This season’s 4-0 home start takes on more significance when you consider that last season, the Heat were just 19-22 at home, only one game better than they were on the road. But this team has a far different vibe, scoring a lot more and playing together, even with Tyler Herro, Norman Powell and Bam Adebayo missing a combined 14 games between them, with Herro and Adebayo still out.
That makes this feel somewhat sustainable.
Kaseya Center has been loud — yes, some late arrivals as always — and engaged in the four games there, with two to come against Cleveland, a team that took the two playoff games against the Heat in Miami last April by a combined 92 points. The current Heat team doesn’t seem capable of that kind of crashout. They started 1 for 15 against the Portland Trail Blazers, but didn’t pout or wilt, and finished with nearly 140 points in another win. That came after running past the Hornets the night before.
Fans are just getting to know the current team in the post-Butler era, but Jaime Jaquez Jr. has quickly regained status as a crowd favorite, and the hustle of Davion Mitchell, Pelle Larsson and others has made this feel more like a traditional scrappy Heat squad than what they were last season. They dpn’t have the pure talent of the 2012-13 group, with no Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh as second and third options. But they are moving the ball much like that 2019-20 team did early.
All in all, it’s making a Miami a tough place to play, as it’s been in the best of years. Now the Cavaliers come calling, and while that’s a worthwhile opponent, they struggled last year in the regular season when spending a few days in South Florida, as they will this week. The clubs aren’t quite the same in Cleveland, after all.