There are moments in sports that burn lines of demarcation between ultimate joy and sorrow. Tuesday night’s Eastern Conference finals Game 1 was just such a moment. The New York Knicks improbably, historically, stormed back from a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit to force overtime and win, 115-104, against the Cleveland Cavaliers.For Knicks fans, after watching their team resurrect from a 0.1 percent chance of winning: elation, a sleepless night of celebration. For Cleveland fans: utter devastation, a sleepless night of “what ifs.”That’s the NBA playoffs for you, folks.But one perspective on the night, too, is that this matchup may be closer than many pundits predicted. Cleveland suffered a historic collapse, one that will sting for a long time. But they also had the Knicks on the ropes.The odds don’t see it that way, though. The Knicks were -265 favorites to get past the Cavs before Game 1. Now they are at -450, or an 81 percent implied likelihood they make it to the NBA Finals. The Cavs, no strangers to advancing against the odds, are at +350 or a 22 percent chance.What will Game 2 hold for these teams?Game 2: Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
TV: ESPNTime: Thursday, 8 p.m. ETSeries odds: Knicks -450, Cavaliers +350You know that common thinking about how hard it can be to just flip a switch and turn it on in the playoffs after a so-so regular season? Well, the Knicks appear to have done that.The Knicks, who entered the season as one of the favorites in the Eastern Conference, finished the regular season with a good, but far from great, 53-29 record. That was good for the third seed in the conference. Then, New York fell behind 2-1 in its first-round series against Atlanta. At that point, the Hawks were actually favored to advance from that series.Since losing Game 3 in Atlanta, the Knicks have been on fire. New York has eight straight wins, and seven of them have been by double digits, including Tuesday night’s roaring comeback. Four of them came by at least 29 points. The Knicks’ lowest scoring output during this run was 108 points. They’re averaging 124 points per game in these eight wins.That’s reason enough why New York is so heavily favored to advance from this series. For some, seeing the grit it took to come back from 22 down was another reason. It felt like Jalen Brunson and company simply decided that losing wasn’t an option. Brunson scored 15 in the fourth quarter as the Knicks went on a 30-8 run before adding a 14-3 advantage in overtime.But until that wild collapse, in which nearly every decision seemed baffling, the Cavaliers surprised the world with play that announced to the doubters: These teams can be peers.The Cavs were actually preseason favorites in the Eastern Conference. The Cavs demolished Detroit on Sunday’s Game 7 to get to the conference finals, while the Knicks were on several days of rest.And yet, for much of the game, Cleveland was cruising. Up until Brunson exploded, Donovan Mitchell was the best offensive player in the game, scoring 29 points and adding three assists and five rebounds. Evan Mobley had 15 points and 14 rebounds. But the offense went quiet near the end. James Harden needed help guarding Brunson and missed five of his six attemps from the field in the fourth quarter.As The Athletic’s Joe Vardon pointed out, “Overall, the Cavs shot just 5-of-17 in the fourth and 1-of-7 in overtime. They committed five turnovers in the final 17 minutes, but those mistakes weren’t nearly as costly as the bad defense and the stagnant offense, with Harden running isolation and missing shot after shot, then being targeted time and again on the other end.”It’ll require a mammoth not to go down 0-2 before heading to Cleveland for the home-court boost. Can Cleveland go up against the odds again?
