Cavaliers 108, Knicks 102: Who even cares

Whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist, if you just don’t care about last night’s Knicks loss, you’re right

After leading most of the way last night the Knicks stumbled late, falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-102, and guess what? Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care. Neither should you.

I say that fully aware that, as a game recapper, projecting an attitude of “Who cares?” is not the fast track to growing the audience. But the Marxist in me thinks too much of what’s wrong in too many of our lives boils down to people only caring about their bottom line — usually money. For Tom Thibodeau and evidently a lotta Knicks fans, winning game 81 clearly meant something. Not me, babe. ‘Cuz reasons.  

First, and to be fair this wasn’t official until the fourth quarter, Indiana’s loss to Orlando earlier in the night clinched the third seed for New York, around the same time Milwaukee’s win over Detroit clinched the Pistons as the Knicks’ first-round opponent. A third of the way into a game the Knicks still had everything to play for, they led by 23. Even late in the contest, when the Cavs – who also, to be fair, had “nothing” to play for – stormed back, and I realized how angsty a lot of fans were feeling, I checked in with my emotions and found them wrapped up tight in the cool embrace of a narcotizing IDGAF.

I’m not saying the Knicks or Cavs players were entirely driven (or not) by whether the home team had anything at stake. I am saying people are people, and if after months of your boss and your organizational ethos insisting “NEVER RELAX! NEVER RELENT!” your team learns in the penultimate game of the regular season that there’s no longer anything to fight for, it’s entirely possible — perhaps even healthy — they’ll lift their foot off the gas.

In the fourth quarter I found myself thinking So what if the Knicks win? Will that change my view of them any? That view hasn’t really changed since the year began: I think the Celtics are head and shoulders better than them, with one caveat I’ll explore more later. I don’t think anyone else in the East is. And I don’t think anything the Knicks could have done last night would have mattered with regard to that question.

If the Knicks had won – without Karl-Anthony Towns, against a Cavs team without Donovan Mitchell – it wouldn’t seem authentic. Part of me wanted them to win to end to the season-long 0-fer they’ve put up against the NBA’s tippity-top teams, but the more I thought about that the more I realized that’s nonsense. What do I care what a bunch of non-Knick fans and ignoramuses have to say about my team? If the outcome only matters because we hope it might meaningfully affect non-Knicks fans, the outcome is meaningless.

In fact, a lot of what was hard to watch go wrong late is what the Knicks will surely be emphasizing in practice next week, before game 83. In the final frame they shot 6-of-26 as a team, including a combined 0-for-12 from OG Anunoby, Miles McBride, Cam Payne and Precious Achiuwa. In that same quarter, Darius Garland went 6-of-6. That’s hardly newsworthy – Garland is an All-Star, something none of those Knicks have ever sniffed being; three of them aren’t even starters. But the Cavs have literal years of continuity built up, and with Mitchell out it was only natural for Garland to take on the lion’s share of the offense, which he did to the tune of 26 efficient points and 13 dimes.

Whereas the Knicks are not only not a beacon of continuity, but very much a work-in-progress. I’m not sure it’s fair to ask Jalen Brunson to miss a month and then re-discover his rhythm in one week, much less for OG and Mikal Bridges to somehow maintain the rhythms they established in his absence while he finds his way back. When Garland was running pick-and-rolls and kicking out to Max Strus for the decisive 3-point barrage, that was something you may very well see again come playoff time. McBride, Payne, Achiuwa and Landry Shamet all played 12-21 minutes; for the latter three, that may be more than they see the entire postseason.

So if last night didn’t matter, what does? Detroit, obviously. We’ll dive plenty into Los Pistons este semana a la Strickland, so let me close by offering you what I think is of some value – reasons both Boston and Cleveland may not be the locks to win the East we keep hearing.

Regarding Boston: Jaylen Brown, a man known to care more than a little about honors and external respect, is still suffering pain in his knee from a bone bruise that’s ultimately going to leave him one game short of the 65-game threshold the dopey owners mandated as the new minimum for awards consideration. He hasn’t played 30 minutes in a game in a month. For Brown to miss — by one game — the opportunity to be considered for all the bells and whistles he thinks he’s entitled to tells you he is hurting.

If he’s compromised, the Celtics are. If they’re compromised, that’s where I think these Knicks have a chance against them. And Brown is hardly the only question mark as far as health. He may be their biggest, figuratively. But there’s a bigger one, literally.

Kristaps Porziņģis missed two-thirds of the Celtics’ playoffs last year and half his teams’ playoff games for his career. What do you think the odds are of him playing half of them this year? Even if KP and Brown both tough it out and play through the pains, there are reasons nobody’s repeated as champs since Golden State, starting with the physical and mental demands that come with playing 100-plus games to win once, then having to do it all again. I know probability isn’t the sexiest opposing argument, but it’s often proven right.

As far as Cleveland, they’re pretty much designed to dominate the regular season, with All-Stars at four spots who’ve played together for years. That’s mostly what they’ve done the past three seasons, at least when they weren’t racked with injuries. Two years ago the Cavs had the league’s second-best net rating before falling to a Knick team that was seventh. Last year they started 36-17, but losing Mitchell, Mobley and Garland for 25-30 games each proved too much. This year the Cavs are again second in net rating, while the Knicks are eighth – and not reliant on Julius Randle rushing his return from a serious ankle injury. Also, for what it’s worth (I think it’s worth something), every Cavs/Knicks meeting this season came with either KAT or Mitchell Robinson out. Throwing that look out against a team that’s never seen it before is gonna create some problems.

As impressive as they were for five months, these Cavs (and the Thunder, honestly) have no trophy room to speak of. Cleveland’s only playoff win was a seven-game death match against the one-dimensional Magic a year ago. Outside of that even their best player, Mitchell, has only been a part of two series wins in his career: his rookie year in Utah topping the Carmelo Anthony Thunder, then three years later besting eight-seed Memphis. I know the 2018-2021 Western playoffs don’t have much to do with the East in 2025, but sometimes patterns persist for a reason. We live in hope.

This could be the hope talking, but today’s Cavaliers remind me a lot of the great Lenny Wilkins’ Cavs teams, featuring Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance, etc. In the late 1980s the Cavs put together such an incredible starting lineup Magic Johnson anointed them the team of the ‘90s. From 1989-1993, a five-year span that included three seasons of 50-plus wins, the Cavs never won a title. Never even reached the Finals. They played seven playoff series and lost four, their wins coming against a sub.-500 New Jersey Nets, a barely-above-.500 Nets and the Celtics in Larry Bird’s final season (a shell of himself due to debilitating back pain, Bird barely played that series). Those Cavs were incredibly talented. Easy on the eyes, offensively. Loaded with players almost any other team would want. But they were never enough.

That’s not a crime! There are 50-, 60-win teams that fail to win titles all the time. There was even a 73-team that didn’t. Championships are hard. They require a lotta things all going right — some for the season’s first six months, many the last two.

I think the Kenny Atkinson Cavs are incredibly talented. Easy on the eyes offensively, for sure. Garland is the closest thing they’ve had to Price since Price; Mobley, Strus and Jarrett Allen likely eclipse even the brilliant frontcourt of Daugherty, Nance and John “Hot Rod” Williams. Every Cav starter today is someone more than half the league would take in a heartbeat. You could have said the same two years ago, when Mitch and Josh Hart helped put them to the sword. Would you be shocked if the same happens next month? Not me.

Of course, before any of that the Knicks first have to deal with Detroit, and before that they still have one game left, tomorrow at Brooklyn. I’m not covering that game and I’m honestly not sure how much of it I’m gonna watch, knowing if I do I’m just gonna be holding my breath hoping nobody falls badly and hurts themselves. Regardless of that game’s outcome, keep an eye out for The Strickland’s playoff coverage starting next week. 

And regardless of the regular season, don’t be down going into the playoffs. This is a better Knicks team than the one that upset the Cavs two years ago. It’s a better team than the one that ended the Process 76ers last year. The Pistons are a nice, scary team, not the kind anyone dreams of facing in round one. Easy to lose sight of for us as Knick fans, but I’m pretty sure our team isn’t anyone else’s blueprint of a pushover either. Not even Cleveland and Boston. Hopefully sooner than not, they’ll prove it.