The New York Knicks are headed to the NBA Finals. Knicks fans waited a long 27 years to hear those words, but Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns & Co. have brought the Finals back to Madison Square Garden on the heels of a historic playoff run.
New York stomped Cleveland 130–93 in Game 4 to complete an Eastern Conference finals sweep of the Cavaliers. It was a balanced effort by the Knicks, who didn’t have a single player reach 20 points in the game. But five players tallying 15 points or more combined with 58 points off the bench made for a complete blowout to clinch an NBA Finals berth on the road.
The last time the Knicks were in the Finals in 1999, Brunson’s dad and current assistant coach Rick Brunson was on the roster. Now, Jalen Brunson leads the storied franchise back to the promised land in his fourth season since he jumped from Dallas to New York. Brunson took over in Game 1 when his team erased a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win in overtime and keep the run alive behind a 38-point night from New York’s star guard.
That moment in Game 1 is when the wheels fell off for the Cavs, who came out on top in two seven-game series before they ran into the Knicks. Despite the big fourth-quarter lead in Game 1, Cleveland lost all four games by double digits.
Now, the Knicks have over a week before the first game of the NBA Finals. The long layoff didn’t hurt New York after the second round, but a Western Conference giant waits ahead. With the Knicks off to the NBA Finals for the first time in nearly three decades, here are our three takeaways from yet another resounding victory:
Another dominant Knicks performance in a closeout game
After an early 2–1 deficit to the Hawks in the first round, the Knicks decided they weren’t going to lose the rest of the way.
In Round 1, the Knicks beat the Hawks by a whopping 51 points in Game 6 to eliminate Atlanta. New York then swept the seventh-seeded 76ers and won by 30 to close out Philadelphia on the road. Then on Monday, the Knicks secured their second sweep in a row with a 37-point win over the Cavaliers. That’s 118 combined points the Knicks have won by in closeout games. Per OptaSTATS, New York’s +271 point differential in its 14 postseason games is the greatest mark entering the NBA Finals in league history. Over the winning streak, the Knicks have a +262 point differential. The next best team in any 11-game stretch—regular season or playoffs—is the 2024 Celtics, who were +243 over 11 games in February to March 2024. If that wasn’t enough, the Knicks are the first team with three series-clinching wins by 20 points or more, according to ESPN. The thing is, though, the Knicks won each of those games by 30 or more.
A truly historic run that makes New York the Eastern Conference’s representative in the NBA Finals. Of course, the Knicks’ next opponent is in a totally new class. But in a year where the presumption was the team who comes out of the West would become the NBA champion, these Knicks have something to say about that.
Donovan Mitchell did his job … but that was about it
The Cavs scored the first five points of Game 4 and got out to a quick lead thanks to two three-pointers from Mitchell. It looked like Cleveland wasn’t ready for its season to finish just yet, but the Knicks were inevitable. New York opened up its lead to as much as 29 in the first half as Mitchell’s supporting cast wasn’t able to stay afloat despite his game-high 31 points.
Mitchell averaged 27.3 points over the four Eastern Conference finals games, but the rest of the Cavaliers’ offense simply couldn’t keep up with New York. In the Game 4 loss, Cleveland got just seven points out of its bench until garbage time. Sam Merrill, one of the heroes of the Game 7 win over the Pistons, scored just five points on limited volume. Max Strus had just five points himself after he made huge shots for the Cavs over the postseason along with Merrill. Big man Jarrett Allen dominated Cleveland’s last elimination game against Detroit, but on Monday, he finished with six points on only five shots. That was his lowest-scoring game of the Eastern Conference finals when Cleveland needed to dominate down low as the Cavs finished with just 18 points in the paint.
James Harden and Evan Mobley each had flashes, but the two stars finished a combined 9-for-23 from the field and 1-for-10 from three-point range. That’s not enough to get by the Knicks, who haven’t stepped off the gas since they were down 2–1 to the Hawks in the first round.
New York’s historic playoff run now collides with a Western Conference giant
With the win over the Cavs on Monday, the Knicks have won a whopping 11 straight playoff games. New York’s streak is tied for the fourth-best postseason heater in NBA history. Three of the four other teams who won 11 or more consecutive playoff games ended up with the Larry O’Brien trophy after the NBA Finals. But the Knicks will have to get past one of the Western Conference powerhouses in the Thunder or the Spurs to make it four out of five.
That’s a tall task for any team, but the Knicks have proved they are the Eastern Conference’s best representative even if they met a No. 7-seeded 76ers team and a flawed Cavaliers squad on the road to the NBA Finals. New York now has the advantage of rest over the team that makes it out of the West, as the Thunder-Spurs series will go at least six games after San Antonio’s win in Game 4 on Sunday. Sometimes that’s not necessarily an advantage, as we saw with Oklahoma City, who came out flat in Game 1 against the Spurs after a sweep of the Lakers in the second round. The Knicks were in that same situation, however, and kept on rolling.
The Knicks had eight days between their second-round sweep of the Sixers and Game 1 against the Cavs, who defeated the Pistons in seven games during their second-round series. Game 1 of the NBA Finals is slated for Wednesday, June 3, which gives New York the same layoff to prepare for the Thunder or the Spurs. The Western Conference champion will be a completely different animal, but the Knicks have shown no signs of slowing down over the dominant run through the East.
If you want to relive Game 4 on a minute-by-minute basis, see below for in-game updates from Sports Illustrated’s staff throughout New York’s resounding win to complete the sweep.
NBA playoffs: Knicks vs. Cavaliers Game 4 live updates, scores, stats
How New York, Cleveland reached the Eastern Conference finals
The Knicks entered the playoffs as the East’s No. 3 seed with a 53–29 record. New York has caught fire in the postseason, but it got off to a pretty slow start against the No. 6 Hawks, falling behind 2–1 in the series in large part because of some unexpected CJ McCollum heroics. The Knicks found their rhythm in the middle of the series, and dispatch of Atlanta with three consecutive wins to close out the series.
Since Game 3 of the opening round, it has been total domination. New York swept the 76ers in four games and are on the verge of doing the same to the Cavaliers. With 10 straight playoff wins, the Knicks are entering historic territory. Only four teams have ever won 11 consecutive postseason contests, and as you’d imagine, that short list features some of the greatest teams of all time.
Cleveland, meanwhile, has been scratching and clawing throughout the playoffs.
After landing the No. 4 seed with a 52–30 record, the Cavs went the distance with the No. 5 Raptors, with the home team winning all seven contests. The second-round series against the No. 1 Pistons began the same way, before Cleveland picked up a huge first road win of the postseason in Game 5. After Detroit responded by winning on the road in Game 6, the Cavs put together an impressive Game 7 effort to take the series, once again picking up a road victory.
They nearly did it again in Game 1 at Madison Square Garden, but after a dreadful collapse in that game and two subsequent losses, Donovan Mitchell, James Harden & Co. have their backs against the wall.
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