The Cavaliers' season ended with a whimper on Monday night, when the Knicks won 130-93 to complete a 4-0 sweep in the Eastern Conference finals. For New York, it was the team's 11th straight playoff win, and the franchise is now headed back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.
For Cleveland, it was a pretty embarrassing end to a pretty good campaign. The Cavaliers went 52-30 during the regular season and finished exactly one game behind the Knicks in the standings. When the postseason rolled around, they battled through two seven-game series before they ran into a Knicks squad that turned into one of the most dominant teams... ever.
Donovan Mitchell was the only Cavaliers player to show up on Monday. Mitchell finished with 31 points on 9-of-18 shooting. When the Cavs fell behind by 20-something in the first half, he was spotted standing in front of the bench, admonishing his teammates.
— Kristian Winfield (@Krisplashed) May 26, 2026
An animated Mitchell was pointing and gesturing and talking to anyone who would listen while the rules were announced for a half-court shot worth $10,000. The fan taking the shot responded by making it. No one else seemed particularly moved by Mitchell's pleas.
Two of the Cavs' other starters, Jarrett Allen and Max Strus, combined for 11 points. Evan Mobley ended up as the team's second-leading scorer with 15 points to go along with seven rebounds.
Then, there was James Harden. Plenty will be written about his performance in this series, but in Game 4, he was especially ineffective. He scored a series-low 12 points on a series-low eight field goal attempts. He finished with just two made field goals and five turnovers. It was the 33rd time Harden finished with more turnovers than field goals in his playoff career, but also the seventh time during the '26 postseason and the second time during this series.
Harden has a player option worth $42 million this summer, so it should be fun to see how everyone involved resolves that situation.
Of course, there's Mitchell, too. He's under contract next season and then has a player option of his own next summer. He's gotten Cleveland out of the first round of the playoffs in three straight seasons and took the team to its first conference finals since LeBron James left, but what kind of running mate does he need? That's the kind of thing the franchise will have to figure out this offseason.
Or this won't be the last time we see Mitchell yelling in the Cavaliers' huddle.
