The New York Knicks erased a 22-point deficit at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night to stun the Cleveland Cavaliers 121-118 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, completing the largest playoff comeback in franchise history and seizing home-court advantage in a series few expected them to start this way.
Jalen Brunson exploded for 24 of his 38 points in the second half, including a step-back three with 14.2 seconds remaining that put New York ahead for good. OG Anunoby added 27 points and the defensive stop that mattered most, stripping Donovan Mitchell on Cleveland’s final possession to seal it. Mitchell finished with a game-high 41 points for the Cavaliers but watched his team unravel in a third quarter that flipped the series before it had really begun.
How the comeback unfolded
Cleveland looked every bit the higher seed for 22 minutes. Mitchell scored 23 in the first half, Evan Mobley controlled the paint with 14 points and seven rebounds before the break, and Darius Garland sliced through New York’s pick-and-roll coverage at will. When Caris LeVert hit a corner three with 1:47 left in the second quarter, the Cavaliers led 67-45 and the Garden had gone silent.
The turn began with Tom Thibodeau’s halftime adjustment. New York switched everything 1 through 4, parked Mitchell Robinson on Mobley to deny post touches, and trapped Mitchell the moment he crossed half-court. Cleveland turned the ball over on six of its first nine third-quarter possessions. The Knicks scored 17 unanswered points in just under four minutes, and Brunson — who had been held to 14 first-half points on 5-of-14 shooting — found his rhythm against Garland in isolation.
By the end of the third, what had been a 22-point hole was a one-point Knicks lead. The fourth quarter was a knife fight: nine lead changes, neither team leading by more than four. Anunoby’s three with 2:41 left tied it at 113. Mitchell answered with a pull-up. Josh Hart grabbed an offensive rebound that led to Brunson’s go-ahead triple, and after Mitchell missed a contested step-back at the buzzer, the Garden erupted.
A franchise milestone
The 22-point comeback is the largest in Knicks playoff history, eclipsing the 21-point recovery against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 5 of the 1970 Eastern Division Finals. It is also the first time New York has overcome a deficit of 20 or more points in a conference finals game since the franchise reached the NBA Finals in 1999.
For Thibodeau, in his fifth season on the bench, it was a vindication of a coaching identity built around defensive switching and minute-heavy rotations. The Knicks’ starting five played 38 of the game’s 48 minutes — a workload no other contender would attempt — and produced a plus-29 in their shared time on the floor.
- Largest playoff comeback in Knicks history: 22 points (previous: 21, 1970)
- Brunson’s 38 points are his postseason career-high
- Cleveland’s 22-point lead is the largest blown by a higher seed in a conference finals Game 1 since Boston coughed up 24 to Miami in 2012
- New York outscored Cleveland 76-51 in the second half
What it means going forward
The numbers behind the win matter as much as the result. Cleveland shot 51 per cent in the first half and 31 per cent in the second. The Cavaliers were minus-18 in the 14 minutes Mobley spent guarding either Karl-Anthony Towns or Robinson on the perimeter — a switching problem Kenny Atkinson will need to solve before Friday’s Game 2. Mitchell’s 41 points came on 34 shots, an efficiency profile Cleveland cannot sustain.
For the Knicks, the concern is sustainability rather than tactics. Brunson logged 44 minutes. Anunoby played 42 with a hamstring he tweaked in the closing weeks of the regular season. Hart played the entire second half. Thibodeau’s group has been here before — they ran out of legs against Indiana in last year’s second round, when Anunoby and Robinson missed games and the bench could not absorb the load. The minutes ledger from Game 1 reads like a warning.
Cleveland will be heavily favoured to respond on Friday. The Cavaliers won 64 regular-season games, hold home-court for the series until New York wins again in Cleveland, and have not lost two in a row at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse since January. But Game 1 was theirs to take, and now they enter Game 2 with a quietened Mitchell, a Mobley defensive question, and a Knicks team that has just discovered it can lose by 22 and still win.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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