Miami Heat Fans’ Petty Rooting Guide to the NBA Playoffs

Miami Heat fans have endured a lot over the past three decades. From being the little expansion basketball team that could in the 1980s to the disappointment that came with playoff losses to the New York Knicks in the 1990s and the euphoria that accompanied winning three championships and playing in six NBA Finals since 2006, it's been a hell of a ride.

But it's safe to say experiencing a historic belt-to-ass four straight playoff losses by a combined 122 points is new, even for a fanbase that has felt every emotion under the unrelenting Heat of the Miami sun.

You're not alone if you're still reeling from the whooping the Cleveland Cavaliers handed the Miami Heat in the first round. But don't worry — we've got the perfect remedy to ease the sting: a guide to rooting for everyone else's downfall. Because nothing soothes the soul of a beaten Heat fan like watching the teams that have wronged us go down in flames.

8. Minnesota Timberwolves

The Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves have as little history with each other as any team in the NBA. Like fifth-cousins at a family reunion, you must keep reminding us we're even loosely related to them because they technically play in the same league.

If anything, T-Wolves star guard Anthony Edwards reminds us of a young Dwyane Wade. And along with every other team in the league, he would be the player Heat fans would most like to acquire in the future.

The T-Wolves have some work to do after dropping the first game of their Western Conference Semifinals series against the Golden State Warriors, but if there is one team left in these playoffs that Heat fans are rooting for, it's likely them. 

Petty Rating: 1/10. A single petty point because they aren't the Miami Heat.

7. Oklahoma City Thunder

The Heat's brief appearance in the playoffs means our drawn-out national nightmare is officially over—the Thunder will receive Miami's first-round draft pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and we can all stop talking about them for the foreseeable future.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is fun, and with a roster full of recent high draft picks, the Thunder are the closest thing to a college team the NBA has. Not to mention, they won 68 games this season, so they've earned it.

Petty Rating: 2/10. It's tough to hate on Oklahoma City, but we'll try. Two points because Heat fans are peanut butter and jealous of the Thunder, which makes us throw up in our mouths a little bit.

6. Indiana Pacers

Sure, the Heat once had some heated series with Indiana, but that was a Paul George and Roy Hibbert thing. This new Pacers crew with Tyrese Haliburton isn't so bad.

Watching Indiana immediately punch the Cavaliers in the mouth in road victories in Games 1 and 2 helped even the prettiest butt-hurt Heat fans get over their beatdown — until they asked themselves if that meant Miami's performance was somehow worse than it appeared.

The Pacers began their series against the Cleveland Cavaliers red hot, stealing Games 1 and 2 on the road. We can't say we loved seeing it, but didn't hate it. That was gross to admit.

Petty Rating: 4/10. Four points simply because the yellow Indiana jerseys still trigger us.

5. Cleveland Cavaliers

This is where our petty starts to flare up. It's one thing to kick our favorite NBA team's asses, but the Cavs' seemingly effortless exhibition against the Heat in the first-round felt like years of get back for past LeBron Heat sins.

Add in the fact that the Cavs talked a bucket full of shit to the Heat while jabbing them in the teeth for four games, and it makes it all enough to tune in to watch the Pacers feed them some humble pie.

Petty Rating: 5/10. Heat fans don't think about the Cavs. That will continue after this season ends. But for now, we were forced to learn the names of these anonymous Cavs players, so we may as well hate them.

4. Denver Nuggets

When you think about it, the Denver Nuggets changed the course of Miami Heat history. If the Heat somehow defeated the Nuggets in the 2023 NBA Finals, Jimmy Butler would most certainly not only get a new max salary contract but, eventually, a statue next to Dwyane Wade's (or whoever that is). This clearly means we could have skipped the torturous last two years following Miami's runner-up season.

Now that we think about it, we blame everything on the Nuggets. It's the Butterfly Effect. Congress should investigate them, because who knows what other tangential harm their championship caused?

Petty Rating: 6/10. Nikola Jovic is cheating. Naming a team after a state's gold mining history is dumb. Name yourself after the weather, like a real basketball team.

3. Boston Celtics

Oh yeah, now we're good and mad. You could have stopped at "Boston," to be honest. Whatever follows Boston in a sentence, Miamians hate. It's a good thing Dunkin Donuts isn't named Boston Donuts because, well ... we'd still eat there, but we wouldn't like it.

Hating the Celtics is practically taught in the Miami-Dade County school system. We don't even need to mention players' names from past teams or this current iteration, because it doesn't matter. Udonis Haslem could unretire to play for the Celtics and immediately become Enemy #1.

Watching Boston blow a 20-point lead in Games 1 and 2 would have made us take out pots and pans in any other year, but, unfortunately, it was to the Knicks.

Petty Rating: 7/10. Giving Boston only seven petty points merely because we now have bigger petty fish to fry.

2. New York Knicks

Under no circumstances can the New York Knicks win the 2025 NBA Championship. None. Zero. This can never happen.

Watching the Knicks take the first two games of their series with the Celtics has to be the most infuriating mixed-petty-bag ever. Who do we hate more? Ask us every hour, and the answer might be different each time.

Petty Rating: 9/10. Heat fans must stop everything they're doing when the Knicks are playing to ensure they are undistracted and can hate New York with their entire bodies. I-95 North!

1. Golden State Warriors

This is personal. The Miami Heat may have fought in previous wars involving past and future aforementioned enemies, but fans will always tie the 2025 season to Jimmy Butler forcing a trade to Golden State due to contract demands. In Heat fans' eyes, the only worse outcome for the season following a 122-point first-round sweep is Jimmy Butler proving the organization LOUD WRONG by winning a title months after his trade to the Warriors.

Heat Culture isn't a thing anymore. That ship has sailed. But watching Jimmy win a title with the Warriors would question everything Pat Riley has done since LeBron left in 2014.

Petty Rating: 11/10. All hands on deck. This is a petty emergency.