It was a game of two halves. After a desolate performance in the first 24 minutes, the Cleveland Cavaliers (7-7) were now trailing by 23 minutes. Then the Cavs, led by the outstanding LeBron James and a hot-running Kyle Korver, started the race to catch up. Cleveland finally snatched the 104:101 victory (BOXSCORE) against the New York Knicks (7-6), which he no longer considered possible. Kristap’s portico didn’t get a good evening.
Madison Square Garden fans were extremely excited about the match against Nemesis LeBron James from the outset. After his comments about the Knicks’ point guard situation, the “King” was booed bravely at every ball possession. Thus, a heated atmosphere developed, especially after James and Frank Ntilikina of all people clashed with each other towards the end of the first quarter in a little push.
Both teams also gave themselves absolutely nothing in sporting terms, with 7 lead changes in the first quarter alone in favour of a duel at eye level. However, there was no sign of this in the second round. Thanks to a strong defensive stance, New York started a 15:0 run with which the hosts set themselves apart to 16 points.
The Cavs fought their way up to 6 points again shortly after the break tea, but the Knicks found the right answer. The hosts, led by the strong Enes Kanter (20 points, 16 rebounds), even extended the lead in the middle of the third section to 23 points. That shouldn’t have been it yet.
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LeBron James (23 points, 12 assists, 9 rebounds, 7/14 FG) and a handful of threesome from Kyle Korver (21 points, 5/12 threesome) catapulted Cleveland back into striking distance. In the closing minutes even a real thriller developed, barely one and a half minutes before the end Cleveland even took the lead with an ice-cold threesome by James. Afterwards it was Dwyane Wade (15 points, 8 rebounds), who finished 5th with a good result. Offensive-Rebound (!) just a few seconds before the end of the match, the Spalding after a Miss von LeBron returned. Korver took care of the preliminary decision from the line.
Kristaps Porzingis experienced a second-hand evening. The Latvian player scored 20 points and 7 rebounds, but the unicorn was not happy with his throwing luck against the Cavs (7/21 FG). Tim Hardaway Jr. did better. with 28 counters (10/20 FG) and 10 rebounds. Ntilikina scored 7 points, 3 rebounds and 6 steals.
Knicks vs. Cavaliers: This way to the BOXSCORE!
LeBron James. LeBron didn’t have much to show of LeBron over long periods of the game. Especially in the first half he was still holding back suspiciously. When it came down to it, however, the “King” was on the spot in a convincing manner. With his Fast-Triple-Double he led the comeback of the Cavs. With an irresistible spot-up threesome just before the end of the match over the outstretched arms of Porzingis, he took the death blow. In addition, he did not let the Latvians in the crunctime with strong defenses to come any more to the next move.
Kristaps Porzingis. Despite its 20 points and 7 rebounds, the unicorn had an evening to forget. At first he missed large parts of the first section, then he had enormous problems against Jae Crowder and finally in the crunchtime against LeBron. Last but not least, the Latvian team also put two important free-throw wins in the final minutes, which would have brought New York back to 1 point, only to the ring.
The Cavs tried their best to get the ball out of Porzingis by every means possible. Most of the time it worked quite well with double teams. But the unicorn did a good job of keeping calm and finding the open-minded man despite the hardship. Due to the Latvian’s early problems of foul and the overall good defenses of Crowder and later James, Kanter became more and more the focus of the Knicks-Offense in the course of the game. But the decisive factor was the strong defensive stance against Porzingis, which simply did not find its rhythm.