The New York Knicks experienced mixed results opening the season against the Eastern Conference teams they chased last spring.
Next, the Knicks will find out how they stack up to another unique foe — the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have been conquered by New York in a playoff setting but are off to a surging start this season.
The Knicks will look to hand the Cavaliers their first loss when they host Cleveland on Monday.
The Knicks have been off since Friday, when they rode a decisive second-quarter run to a 123-98 win over the visiting Indiana Pacers. The Cavaliers were off Sunday after cruising to a 135-116 victory Saturday over the host Washington Wizards.
The win over the Pacers represented a return to form and provided a bit of revenge for the Knicks, who fell to Indiana in a seven-game Eastern Conference semifinal series in May.
The Knicks had four 20-point scorers — Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart — and shot 44.4 percent (12-of-27) from 3-point land three nights after a 132-109 loss to the Boston Celtics.
New York also limited the Pacers to 10 percent shooting from 3-point land (3-of-30) after allowing the defending NBA champion Celtics to tie a league record by draining 29 3-pointers.
“We just showed up,” Brunson said. “Plain and simple. I think Boston came out with an energy that we just didn’t match and it’s unacceptable. Today we knew that we had to pick it up. We had to turn the page and be better.”
Few teams have been better this season than the Cavaliers, who lost to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals in May after being eliminated by the Knicks in the first round in the spring of 2023.
But Cleveland is off to a 3-0 start this season and is outscoring opponents by an average of 20.3 points per game — the second-highest figure in the NBA entering Sunday behind only the Golden State Warriors, who have played one fewer contest.
The Cavaliers haven’t started 4-0 or better since the 2016-17 season, when they opened 6-0 in the penultimate season of LeBron James’ second stint with the franchise.
Cleveland, which completed a back-to-back set Saturday, trailed the Wizards for just 14 seconds — at 2-0 — and blew open a close game with a 36-20 run in the third quarter. The Cavaliers led by as many as 27 in the fourth quarter.
“We came out of the gate pretty slow, stuck in the mud,” Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “But I just loved our composure. We just kept at it, over and over, kept competing, kept getting defensive stops. And I felt like the second half, we came out and started making some shots. I thought that group came out, first eight minutes of the third quarter, and set a tone.”
Donovan Mitchell poured in 30 points in that game to lead the Cavaliers, and Jarrett Allen and Darius Garland each finished with 23 points. Mitchell paces the team with 23.3 points per game early in the campaign.
