Cavaliers 121, Knicks 108: Stumbling & fumbling

A late turnaround was followed by a later collapse as the Knicks let a win slip through their grasp.

The Cavaliers, winners of four straight coming into tonight, shot the lights out in the first half. Despite their opponent’s blistering shooting, the Knicks kept it close before mustering a rally in the third quarter, ending the period with a nine-point lead. In the fourth, Cleveland found their form again while the Knicks stumbled, allowing a winnable game to slip through their fingers. Final score was Cleveland 121, New York 108.

Notes:

-        The Knicks were killed, from wire to wire, by the three-ball. For the game, Cleveland shot 23/49 (46.9%). The Knicks had no answer for the Cavaliers’ shooters, with Dean Wade, Donovan Mitchell, and Kevin Love doing most all the damage. It was the threes that propelled the Cavs to a three-point lead at the end of the first half, and it was their 8-13 shooting from deep in the fourth that erased a nine-point Knicks’ lead.

-        Love exploded in the fourth: 5-7 from three, including a back-breaking four-point play which gave the Cavs the lead with 5:20 left, igniting a 14-0 run that ended the game. He scored 16 of Cleveland's 37 in the fourth.

-        Mitchell eviscerated the Knicks all game, which was inevitable from the moment the Knicks failed to trade for him. 38 points on 12-20 shooting, including 8-13 from three, good for an 80.8% true shooting percentage (TS%). Mitchell added 12 assists, two blocks, and a steal. He scored almost at will against the Knicks’ Swiss cheese defense.

-        An up-and-down night from Jalen Brunson. He rebounded from a quiet first half (two points, 13.4% TS%, four assists) in the third quarter (12 points, 75% TS%, two assists), and was the catalyst, alongside Julius Randle, to the Knicks jumping out to a nine-point lead at the end of the third. The high point of Brunson’s quarter was definitely this well-timed cut he capped off with a nice reverse layup.

Brunson followed up his third quarter heroics with a disappointing fourth, going 1-4 with just two points, and his disappearance played a large role in the Knicks fading late.

-        Fifteen points, nine rebounds, seven assists tonight for Randle. The stat line looks decent, but a paltry 43.1% TS% and four turnovers reveal that it was a mixed bag. There were several times where Randle impressed me by finding Mitchell Robinson underneath the hoop with a nice pass, or with his pushing the pace off a rebound, but he also had several puzzling moments where his hero-ball tendencies shone through again.

I question how much Randle, even at his best, makes his teammates better. He can generate some open shots for Robinson under the basket or players on the perimeter on his drives, but what’s he doing for his teammates when the ball is not in his hands?

-        A frustratingly silent night from RJ Barrett despite a strong first half: 4-7 from the field, including 3-3 from deep, for 11 points led into a second half where Barrett took just three shots. While Brunson and Randle swished and dished in the third quarter, Barrett rightfully took a back seat, but when no one on the Knicks could buy a bucket in the fourth, Barrett didn’t re-emerge, taking just one shot.

-        Evan Fournier shot well, 16 points with an 81% TS%, which is about all he did well. Fournier was regularly matched up against Mitchell on defense and struggled mightily. Mitchell is a handful for the best point of attack defenders in the NBA, which Fournier is not. On offense, he provided little more than his shooting – the only decision Fournier makes quickly when he gets the ball is whether to shoot it, otherwise it sticks, and he tends to aimlessly dribble around before either taking a pull-up shot or dumping the ball on a poor teammate. Fournier can’t defend, can’t dribble, and he can’t pass, so all he’s providing the starting lineup is his shooting. It’s not enough.

-        Just 15 minutes for Toppin tonight. He played very well in the first half but got benched for Randle late in the second quarter and didn’t get back on the court until the last 36 seconds of the third. He defended Love poorly in the fourth and got benched for the rest of the game. He ended the night with nine points on 64.3% TS%.

-        Seven points on 2-7 shooting with three assists in 19 minutes for Immanuel Quickley. The stats aren’t impressive, but I liked Quick tonight. He had two nice passes to Toppin, the first an outlet pass to a streaking Obi who went up for a finger roll, and the second a beautiful alley-oop in transition that Toppin slammed home.

Cleveland used a timeout after this and Quickley and Toppin were benched.

-        Later in the second, Mitchell threw a lob to Isaac Okoro that was way too high. It bounced off the backboard into Robinson’s hands. Clyde called it an “alley-oop to oblivion.” I thought this perfectly summed up what happened to Quickley and Toppin in the first half – from an alley-oop that cut the Cavs’ lead to four to oblivion on the bench.

-        The Cavs’ lineup creativity makes me jealous. Their starting lineup features Dean Wade, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen, while JB Bickerstaff managed to find time for OAKAAK Robin Lopez and Love. Bickerstaff was flexible with Love and Allen – when Love caught fire in the fourth quarter, Bickerstaff kept him in, moving Allen to the bench when it was time for Mobley to come back in. If Tom Thibodeau were coaching that team, Love would probably be starting while Mobley gets 16 minutes a game. If there’s ever a team to try playing Toppin and Randle together with either Hartenstein or Robinson against, it’s this Cavs team.

I recently listened to an interview with Mike D’Antoni on the Thinking Basketball podcast, and I highly recommend it. In the interview, MDA talks about his coaching experiences, specifically with the Phoenix Suns, where he would play small lineups featuring multiple guards and no “traditional” big men (at least by the standards of the time). MDA explained that he wanted to get his best players on the court together, and that there’s a lot of benefits to having multiple ball-handlers in a lineup, even if some of those players are undersized defensively. I wish Thibs thought like this. I don’t know if replacing Fournier with Quickley in the starting lineup and getting Toppin more time in general would fix everything with this team, but it would be a good place to start. It’s frustrating losing games, but the frustration gets amplified when it appears that nothing is learned, the same lineups are trotted out there, game after game. For at least two years now, Thibs has left two of his best players off the court for large chunks of the game and has refused to adjust, and the Knicks have floundered. How much longer can he afford to leave wins on the table with sub-optimal rotations?