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Game Thread | Knicks playoff series Game #4 | Cavs @ Knicks | April 23, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. ABC

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A lot a griping about the coach happening, but I see a clear talent deficiency. CLE has $12M allocated to Rubio and Wade for the next TWO years. That is self-inflicted injury; those contracts did not need to happen when they did.

Meanwhile, NY acquires Josh Hart at the trade deadline. CLE did not match this move and they will reqret it if they lose the series.
 
kookoo said:
I knew he had a stroke. But I've felt this way ever since we won and Kyrie left. He didn't go all out to get LeBron someone else outside of Love. We could have made more of an effort to get the right team around LeBron. And regardless of a stroke or not, the word around the street is he doesn't want to go into the tax again (even though he seemingly okayed Love getting the max when he was a 22m/year player at best at the time). We didn't take on any additional salary for bringing in Mitchell, just mortgaged our future and then did nothing from that point to improve the squad. And I'm guessing the purse strings are going to tighten even more when Mobley's contract comes into play. I want an owner who is involved and willing to put money into it.

This isn't to downplay the stroke by the way. I feel awful for him and hope he's recovering well. I just don't think he or his family really care about the team anymore.
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The Cavs have the green light financially to go into the tax. But especially with the new CBA rules, you have to be mindful of when you go into the tax, and who for.

Reality is, if the Cavs had a late first to trade we would probably have gotten Josh Hart or Royce O Neale.
 
One of my Knicks homies is talking about how he's surprised the Knicks have dominated the glass so much. He legit thought Allen/Mobley would be formidable in the paint.

Come on yall... deep down us Cavs fans knew our bigs were soft but we just sorta looked the other way all year. Knicks are crashing the boards every possession and we have no answer for it lol.
 
One thing I don’t think is being talked ta out enough is this:

The Knicks; in reality, and this has basically been proven over a strong 8 game sample size now, are a bad matchup for the Cavs.

The Cavs offense relies heavily on attacking the rim. The Knicks protect the rim better than 90% of the league.

The Cavs have a distinct weakness on the defensive glass. The Knicks are an elite team on the offensive glass.


The Cavs have weak 5-8. The Knicks had one of the best 2nd units in the league.

The Cavs were an elite home team and a poor road team. The Knicks were average at home but were one of the better road teams in the entire league:

Hell, Brunson has been deeper and succeeded in bigger games than even Mitchell.

I do think the Cavs make a massive mistake getting rid of Love, mainly because Bickerstaff was unwilling to even given him a chance to earn any minutes back.

But man, we desperately could have used Kevin Loce this series. He would be our best defensive rebounder and our best spot up shooter.

I’d rather go down with a champion over Osman.

Let me put it this way: I’d Love were still on the team, JBB would have gone to him for at least 20 minutes a game by game 2.
 
Losing Love really bit us in the ass. Especially a team that lacks perimeter play. He's not what he once was, I just don't think he was healthy though. I hated that move a lot. I still think he can give you 15-20 minutes a game. And he's really the only player with real playoff experience. Even Mitchell's playoff experience isn't comparable.
 
Never seen Josh hart before this series but he’s like a better okoro. I don’t see anything he does that okoro doesn’t other than be more physical and a better iq and confidence on offense. Love this guy though.
 
The Knicks have the personnel and the head coach to exploit the Achilles Heel of the Cavs. That is, our defense is heavily based on our bigs roaming and helping whenever anyone gets past the perimeter into the paint. With Mitchell and Hartenstein the only way our bigs have even the slightest chance to keep them off the boards would be if they bodied up, stay bodied up, and just focus completely on boxing out instead of stepping over to stop a drive.

Thibs recognized this and he has just the guys to exploit the hell out of it. Add to that the fact that the Knicks team rebound and crash the paint unlike the Cavs, who leave it mostly up to the bigs. Go back and count the white jerseys versus the black jerseys on every rebound and you'll see it.

Then add the fact that they were getting to the 50/50 balls better than us. Put it all together and it's pretty hard to win playing that way. Extra possessions and turnovers create an advantage that is almost impossible to overcome.
 
Pillowy soft on the defensive boards, and the Knicks made them pay.

100% deserved to lose that game.

A serviceable, third physical big to join the rotation will help next year, along with Mobley filling out. He and Allen are getting beaten up all game.

I'm not gonna trash JBB, but I will say that Thibs is a really good coach that makes good defensive changes on the fly. Doubling Mitchell to get the ball out of his hands when Garland was off the court was smart. Garland was cooking Brunson in the third so different people were put on him after he got hot.
 
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