The Miami Heat will not be an easy out. Wednesday night proved that, and not a lot more.

The Cleveland Cavaliers won at home again to take a 2-0 lead in this first round best-of-seven playoff series, which NBA history says gives them an 88% likelihood of advancing.

Few outside of hardcore fans or the delusional believe that the Heat, play-in survivors, can win this series over No. 1-seed Cleveland, even as the series heads back to Miami now for two games starting Saturday.

What Miami showed Wednesday, in a 121-112 loss, was fight and no quit. That’s something. But enough?

The Heat, after losing Game 1 by 21 points, trailed most of Game 2 but drew within two at 101-99 before the Cavs finished big as star Donovan Mitchell hit 17 fourth-quarter points to deny Miami’s rally.

“At the end of the day it’s a two-point game [late],” said coach Erik Spoelstra, seeing the glass half full. “We got a couple of days, we just gotta figure it out. Couple of games, we’re right there. We just have to figure out how to get it over the top. We have to be better.”

(Nitpick: Actually, at the end of the day, you’re down 2-0, after a pair of losses by a combined 30 points.)

Said Bam Adebayo: “Get home. Figure out how we can get two at the crib.”

Tyler Herro: “We lost the game. I don’t think there’s any moral victories in this. We came out better, but gonna need that for a full 48 minutes. Get this cleaned up sooner than later or we’ll be down 3-0.”

You knew the Heat would play better in Game 2. (They couldn’t be worse.)

Miami was counting on Spoelstra’s history of making between-game adjustments that worked. After all he’d been 10-3 all time in the playoffs after his team had lost Game 1 in a series.

The Heat also was counting on the intangibles that make up the planks of “Heat Culture.” You know, working harder than the other team. Being more physical. Imposing will and all that good stuff.

The Heat must now consider that Cleveland is just this much better. The disparity in won-lost records and in seedings offered a loud hint.

But sometimes you need to try as hard as you can and still be down 2-0 to the best offense in the NBA to see it for yourself.

Mitchell’s 30 points and Cleveland’s parade of 22 3-point baskets ultimately overwhelmed Miami, despite the 33 points the Heat got from Herro. Davion Mitchell starting added a spark. Nikola Jovic’s return was welcome, though he was 1 for 8 on 3s. Miami needed somebody else to step up big offensively. Andrew Wiggins and Adebayo would have been good candidates. They scored 21, combined, on 6-for-19 shooting.

The series looks finished, even as it heads to Miami, even with Wednesday’s encouraging fight and comeback.

It’s up to the Heat to show it isn’t.

Because this has never been about the Heat needing to be more physical and work harder. It was always about Miami needing to be better, a lot better, to compete with the top-seed Cavs.

“We got punked in the first game. We got to be more physical,” Herro had said.

“We have to be the harder-playing team,” Davion Mitchell had said.

Nope and nope.

Instead, two games have shown us the Heat need not better effort but rather a player better than Donovan Mitchell, a supporting cast and bench better than the Cavs’, an offense this explosive.

One team here has NBA championship aspirations that look real.

The other won two games to advance from play-in purgatory to eke into the playoffs proper and earn the right to experience the hard slap that is a 2-0 hole.

None of this is a criticism of the Heat as much as it is an appreciation what Cleveland has built.

Miami had a 37-45 regular season. Who wasn’t expecting a 2-0 hole?

Spoelstra is a great coach and Heat Culture is a thing. But it distills to effort, to ‘we want it more.’

The trouble is, when the other team is working just as hard, and wants it just as much, and has a more talented roster ... this series happens.

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