MIAMI -- Jarrett Allen scored 22 points, De'Andre Hunter added 21 and the Cleveland Cavaliers handed Miami its worst-ever playoff loss by topping the Heat 124-87 on Saturday for a 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference first-round series.
Evan Mobley scored 19 and Max Strus added 18 for Cleveland, which got 13 points apiece from Ty Jerome and Donovan Mitchell.
Bam Adebayo scored 22 and Davion Mitchell added 16 for Miami. The worst Heat playoff loss, before Saturday, was a 36-point defeat in Game 3 of the 2013 NBA Finals at San Antonio.
That Heat team won an NBA title. This Heat team is on the brink of being swept.
"Clearly, a very disappointing day," Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. "Our guys really want this, and it probably looks like our guys don't. But I know what our last six weeks have been like, just to fight and scratch and claw to get into this. And that's why this is such a disappointing game."
It's the 11th time that a Cavaliers team has taken a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series -- the other 10 were all in the LeBron James eras in Cleveland, and they all ended in 4-0 sweeps. This series has landed at that point thanks to rebounding. The Cavaliers took control with a 33-5 run early, and all told, they outrebounded Miami 46-29 and outscored the Heat 60-30 in the paint.
"Our guys knew that was the key, rebounding and winning the rebounding battle," Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. "We really executed defensively."
The Cavaliers will try to finish off a sweep of their own when Game 4 is played in Miami on Monday. It's the 159th time in NBA history that a team has taken a 3-0 series lead; the first 157 went on to win the series, and Oklahoma City is the 158th and could oust Memphis later Saturday.
It was all Miami for the first 5½ minutes, as would be expected from a team in a 2-0 series hole and back home trying to make it a series. But after that, it was all Cleveland, the Cavaliers taking full control of the game over the next 8 minutes with that 33-5 run.
Cleveland shot 13-for-17 during the spurt, scoring on its first eight possessions of the run. And it ended with five consecutive makes from 3-point range, all those coming in a span of just over 2 minutes.
Just like that, 15-6 Miami became 39-20 Cleveland. And Atkinson, in his postgame media availability, spent some time lauding Strus for the overall effort, adding that "he does all the dirty work."
"We took the first punch," Mobley said. "And from there we just took the game over."
It was 62-42 at halftime, and Cleveland missed its first eight shots of the second half. But Miami scored only four points during that span, wasting a chance. Cleveland led 88-64 going into the fourth and that was it.
There was one big cheer from Miami's crowd the rest of the way, when Colombian singer Shakira was shown courtside.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.