By Oliver Carter
The New York Knicks won Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Monday, sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0 in the series to reach their first finals since 1999.
New York blew out the Cavaliers 130-93 in Rocket Arena, Cleveland.
Knicks’ keys to victory
While the Knicks managed to win Game 4 by 37 points, no members of the Knicks reached 20 points.
The highest scoring Knick was Karl-Anthony Towns who ended up with 19 points, 14 rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
New York’s supporting cast chipped in massively with six players all in double-digit scoring.
Towns led the scoring with OG Anunoby, Landry Shamet, Jalen Brunson, Mikal Brides and Miles McBride also scoring over 10 points.
They also had two more players who didn’t manage 10 points but did manage double-digit rebounds as Josh Hart pulled in 11 rebounds to accompany six points, six assists and two steals.
Mitchell Robinson ended with eight points, 10 rebounds and a steal.
Shamet had his highest scoring game of the playoffs so far as he scored 16 points in 19 minutes.
Shamet has also shot 15/16 from three across the four games of the Eastern Conference Finals, adding himself to a list of key role players helping their teams to the finals.
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Eastern Conference Finals MVP Jalen Brunson
Jalen Brunson won the ECF MVP for his incredible series.
Brunson averaged 25.5 points, 3.3 rebounds, 7.8 assists and 1.0 steals per game across the series and led the Knicks back to the top of the East.
Before the Knicks signed Brunson, they had just one playoff appearance in the last nine seasons.
Since Brunson joined in 2022 the Knicks have reached the Eastern Conference semi-finals twice, Conference finals and now the NBA Finals.
Brunson joined the Knicks with zero NBA accolades and now has three All-Star appearances, two All-NBA second team selections, the NBA In-Season Cup, In-Season Tournament MVP and Eastern Conference Finals MVP.
The Knicks have also become the first NBA Cup Champion to reach the finals in the same season.
The In-Season tournament in just its third year may turn out to have been a finals preview, as the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs to lift the trophy.
New York will now wait for the results of the OKC Thunder vs San Antonio Spurs to see who they will be facing on the biggest stage in Basketball.
What went wrong for Cleveland?
After the Cavaliers’ Game 3 loss, Donovan Mitchell was asked what led the team to such a bad position, he answered, “Blowing a 22-point lead in Game 1.”
Now the series has been wrapped up so comfortably it is easy to forget how close the Cleveland Cavaliers were to winning Game 1 on the road.
Up by 22 points with under eight minutes remaining to then lose in overtime by 11, the mentality in the Cleveland locker room clearly took a massive hit.
As soon as game one wrapped up it seemed the series was already over. Now, the Knicks have completed the clean sweep and that sentiment has been proven right.
Another defining point of the Cavs’ season was trading away 26-year-old Darius Garland for 36-year-old James Harden.
While Harden helped Cleveland to their first Conference Finals appearance since LeBron James left in 2018, his performances in the series were terrible.
Harden scored 16 points, delivered 4.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.3 steals per game on terrible shooting splits.
He managed just 38.9% from the field, making 21 of his 54 attempted shots over the four games alongside a dismal 17.9% from three-point range, dropping in only five of 28 shots from deep.
Harden is second all-time in three-pointers made and is one of the greatest regular season scorers of all time, but his terrible defence and drop in scoring efficiency make him one of, if not the biggest playoff underperformer of all time.
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