Knicks Finals for the first time since 1999
CLEAVLAND — The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. They swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals with a 130-93 victory in Game 4 on Monday, continuing a remarkable playoff run. Karl-Anthony Towns had 19 points and 14 rebounds, OG Anunoby scored 17 and the New York Knicks routed the Cleveland.
Landry Shamet scored 16 off the bench while Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson had 15 apiece for the Knicks, who became the fourth team to have an 11-game winning streak during their postseason run. The last to do it was Golden State, which had a 15-game run en route to its second title in three seasons in 2017.
New York built a 29-point lead in the first half, was up by 19 at halftime and went on to win by 37. The Knicks are the first team in NBA history to win three closeout games by 20-plus points in the same postseason, having closed out the Hawks with a 51-point rout and finished their second-round sweep with a 30-point win against the Philadelphia 76ers. This is the first time in franchise history that they’ve swept back-to-back series.
Unlike Game 3, the clincher wasn’t a wire-to-wire win for New York — the Cavaliers took a six-point lead early — but it was a more dominant one. The Knicks went on a 20-0 run in the first half and led by as many as 45 points in the second. When Cleveland cut it to 16 early in the third quarter, they responded with a 12-0 run. Defensively, the Cavs had a modicum of success in the half-hour by turning to a zone, but they undercut that by repeatedly allowing the Knicks to find easy baskets in transition.
“I give our guys a lot of credit for sticking to the game plan and really trying to push the pace because that’s what we wanted to do coming into this series,” New York coach Mike Brown told reporters.
As a team, the Knicks shot 19 for 43 (44.2%) from 3-point range. New York guard Landry Shamet, who was phenomenal throughout the series, finished with 16 points (5-6 FG, 4-4 3PT) in 19 minutes off the bench. Six Knicks scored in double figures, but no one reached the 20-point mark and Jalen Brunson didn’t even play in the fourth quarter. When Cleveland pulled its starters with 8:37 left, New York had a 37-7 edge in bench points and a 32-6 edge in fast break points.
“They’re playing great basketball,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson told reporters. “You just gotta give ’em credit. They’re on a heater. They’re in a groove.”
Brunson was named Eastern Conference Finals MVP and won the award unanimously. In four wins, he averaged 25.5 points and 7.8 assists shot 48.7% from the field. Brunson scored just 15 points in Game 4, but “created a lot of double-teams and we had a lot of guys get great looks because of the havoc that he caused out on the floor with the attention that Cleveland had to pay to him,” Brown said.
Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell scored a game-high 31 points (9-18 FG, 5-9 3PT, 8-10 FT) in the loss. His teammates, however, shot a combined 6 for 34 from 3-point range. James Harden missed all six of his 3-point attempts and finished with 12 points (2-8 FG, 8-9 FT). After acquiring Harden from the Los Angeles Clippers midseason, the Cavs made their first conference finals appearance without LeBron James on the roster since 1992. Losing the series this decisively, though, raises questions about what lies ahead. Harden, 36, has a $42.3 million player option next season. Mitchell, 29, has a $53.8 million player option in 2027-28. Both will be eligible to sign extensions in the offseason, and the team has the league’s highest payroll.
“The roster talk, you know, that’s for down the line,” Atkinson said. “Our front office has done a phenomenal job, like I said, giving us a great roster. Obviously there will be decisions to be made, like every summer, but I think we’re doing pretty well with those decisions since I’ve been here.”
Cleveland was 0-for-9 from the field during its drought, including missing all three shots from beyond the arc, and committed four turnovers.
Cleveland had a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter of the opener and then found itself on the wrong end of a 44-11 run, losing the game by 11 points in overtime. Atkinson said, though, that, if he regrets anything about these playoffs, it is losing Game 6 in both the first and second rounds when the team had a chance to close the series out.
