Knicks bully Cavaliers 101-97

   The Cleveland Cavaliers had a home-court advantage for their first playoff game without LeBron James since the days of Mike Fratello as coach. 

Yet, in the end, the old barbs from the pre-LeBron days re-emerged as Cleveland was bullied on the offensive boards and couldn't rebound the ball when the game mattered most as the New York Knicks took game one of the Eastern Conference series 101-97 in Cleveland.

Donovan Mitchell led all scores with 38 points with Darius Garland in second spot on the team with seventeen.

Game two will be in Cleveland on Tuesday night.

Swashbucklings

1) The Knicks needed to be sure of the status of Julius Randle entering game one and it was the Cavaliers dismayed to see Randle in the lineup.

Randle finished with nineteen points and ten rebounds and despite shooting only seven of twenty from the field, Randle was the key to the New York win as he grabbed several big rebounds in the waning minutes of the game with the biggest on the final possession with Randle grabbing an offensive rebound that forced the Cavaliers to foul rather than having a chance to win the game with the last shot.

2) New York savagely pounded Cleveland on the boards, winning that battle 51-38 and especially on the offensive side, where the Knicks grabbed seventeen to eleven but again dominated in that area in the late stages of the game with seven offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter.

3) The rap on the Cavaliers teams of the eighties and nineties was a lack of physical toughness and this team has a similar reputation to prove wrong.

Game one only fed that assumption as the Knicks bullied the Cavaliers around with the arguable exception of Jarrett Allen, who finished with fourteen points and fourteen rebounds.

4) Darius Garland finished with seventeen points but only one assist and disappeared in the fourth quarter.

I'm mildly concerned that Garland is almost allowing too much to be given to Donovan Mitchell and may fall into sidekick mode, which makes the Cavaliers overly dependent on the dynamic Mitchell.

5) Cleveland's bench is one of the weakest in the playoff field and it showed in game one with only Cedi Osman scoring more than three points from the bench with his nine.

Osman played fairly well but Caris LeVert was just one for seven and missed all three of his attempts from three-point range.

Cleveland is depending on their starters to post big minutes in this series but is hoping to receive a big series from someone off the bench.

So far that's only been Cedi Osman.

6)  The Cavaliers suffered from major three-point problems in the loss to New York as they connected on only ten of their thirty-one attempts.

Donovan Mitchell hit six with Cedi Osman and Darius Garland each nailing two but twenty-one misses is a lot for a team that is hoping to open space by forcing the opponent to respect the long range game.

7) Give Cleveland credit for battling back late in the game as they trailed by double-digits and by eight with minutes remaining before a nine-point run put Cleveland up by one with a little over two minutes to go.

But New York would score the next five points to re-take the lead and Cleveland could never get closer than two before the games end.

8) Every playoff game is important in its own way but game two will now carry special importance for Cleveland.

Home court has already been lost unless they win a game in New York to regain the edge later in the series.

With the Cavaliers holding a losing road record for the season, a loss would not only put them down two games with the next two in New York, it would also mean that to win the series that Cleveland would need two wins in the Big Apple to eventually win the series, so it could prove to be the pivotal point in the series.