New York Knicks Defeated By Cleveland Cavaliers To Even Series

New York Knicks
New York Knicks

With Darius Garland scoring 32 points, out of which 26 came while setting up an aggressive tone for the Cavaliers in the first half, the team from Cleveland managed to even out their Eastern Conference playoff series against the New York Knicks.

Garland went on to score 15 points in the second quarter as well, when the Cavaliers managed to tighten down defensively- as well as dominate the Knicks, wherein they forced nine straight turnovers on the way to a halftime lead of 20 points. The Cleveland team then pushed their lead to 29 in the fourth quarter. But the blowout ended with quite a hard foul. The Knicks were still down by 23 and were playing the starters when Julius Randle was hit by Jarrett Allen, the Cavs center on a dunk with just 2:22 left on the clock. Randle fell hard and then had a heated exchange of words with the Cavaliers’ players. 

Cleveland Cavaliers Go 2-1 On the New York Knicks 

Against the New York Knicks, Caris LeVert scored 24 points straight off the bench, while Donovan Mitchell added 17 and a career playoff-high 13 assists for the Cavs, who were quite physical in their game against the Knicks- especially Game 1. But then Randle scored 22 points, and Brunson went on to add 20 for the Knicks, which split the Championship evenly. The third game, which took place at Madison Square Garden- was clinched by the Cavs. The team from Cleveland did manage to match the physicality of the Knicks from the very beginning- where they won 50/50 balls that went to New York in the opening quarter. 

With Garland showing bravado while the New York Knicks showed their heat in the game, the Knicks actually got pretty rattled as Josh Hard was called for a technical foul. Interestingly, the Cavaliers were pushed around in Game 1, but they did take revenge for it in Game 3- as Bickerstaff wanted his team to lead the aggression.