The New York Knicks moved within one win of their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999 after a commanding 118-94 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, opening a 3-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.
Jalen Brunson led all scorers with 32 points and 11 assists, his third straight 30-point game of the series. Karl-Anthony Towns added 24 points and 14 rebounds, while OG Anunoby’s defensive work on Donovan Mitchell — who was held to 18 points on 6-of-19 shooting — proved decisive in a game that was effectively over by the start of the fourth quarter. The Knicks now have three chances to close out the series, with Game 4 in Cleveland on Monday night.
Brunson’s masterclass continues
This was Brunson at his most ruthless. The Knicks captain, who finished fourth in the regular-season MVP voting, has averaged 31.7 points, 9.3 assists and 6.0 rebounds through three games while shooting 52% from the field. His pull-up jumper from the left elbow — the shot Cleveland has tried and failed to take away — has produced 14 points per game in this series alone.
Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson has rotated four different defenders onto Brunson across the three games. None has worked. Darius Garland, the smallest of them, was repeatedly hunted in pick-and-roll actions; Saturday’s most damaging stretch came in the third quarter, when Brunson scored or assisted on 14 consecutive Knicks points, eight of them initiated by switching Garland onto him.
The supporting cast has matched him. Towns has shot 58% from three-point range, exploiting the space created when Cleveland’s centre Jarrett Allen is pulled to the perimeter. Mikal Bridges, who struggled in the second round against Indiana, has reasserted himself with three straight games of 20 or more points and has not committed a turnover since Game 1.
A 27-year wait nearing its end
The Knicks last appeared in the NBA Finals in 1999, when a Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston-led team became the only eighth seed in league history to reach the championship round, losing to the San Antonio Spurs in five games. The franchise has not won a title since 1973. Only Sacramento and Charlotte have endured longer droughts among teams still in the same market.
That historical weight has hung over the Garden through the better part of two decades — Patrick Ewing’s near-misses in the 1990s, the Carmelo Anthony years that yielded just one playoff series win, the rebuild under Leon Rose that began in 2020. Tom Thibodeau, in his fifth season as head coach, has now taken the Knicks past the second round for the first time since 2000 and is one win away from doing what Jeff Van Gundy, Mike D’Antoni and Jeff Hornacek could not.
No team in NBA history has overturned a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs. The 156 series in which a team has taken a 3-0 lead have all ended in that team’s favour. Cleveland would need to do what 156 previous opponents could not.
Cleveland’s structural problems exposed
The Cavaliers, who finished the regular season as the East’s top seed with 64 wins, have been undone by the same issues that troubled them in February: a lack of secondary creation when Mitchell is contained, and a defensive scheme that has not adjusted to New York’s spacing.
- Mitchell is shooting 38% from the field across the series, down from his regular-season mark of 46%.
- Evan Mobley, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, has been outscored by Towns 67-31 in their direct minutes on the floor.
- Cleveland’s bench has been outscored by 47 points across three games.
- The Cavaliers have shot 29% from three in the series, against a regular-season figure of 38%.
Atkinson, in his first season after taking over from J.B. Bickerstaff, faces difficult questions about whether to start De’Andre Hunter on Monday in place of Isaac Okoro, and whether Garland — clearly hampered by a turned ankle suffered in Game 2 — should sit. Cleveland’s front office is also expected to use the off-season to revisit the long-term fit of the Mobley-Allen frontcourt, an experiment that has now failed in three consecutive playoff runs.
For the Knicks, the focus is narrower. Win on Monday, and the franchise returns to the Finals for the first time in 27 years, where either the Oklahoma City Thunder or Minnesota Timberwolves will await.
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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