3 best things the Cleveland Cavaliers did against the New York Knicks

Played swarming defense

The Cavs are best in transition. We saw that first-handily on Tuesday. When given a chance to run the court in transition, the Cavs’ offensive was extremely effective. That was only made possible due to the constant defensive swarming. Everyone, and I mean everyone got in on the action, including Darius Garland, who had arguably the best defensive game of his career.

It doesn’t hurt that the New York Knicks only truly have one good playmaker in Jalen Brunson. A fact made clear by the fact no one but Burnson seemed capable of pushing the offense when he didn’t have the ball. It also didn’t help that the Knicks were forced to take jumpers too, taking 36 shots from outside of the paint, and missing 27 of them.

The Cavs held the Knicks’ shooting to just 25% from outside the paint. Exposing the lack of reliable offense in the process. Julius Randle again played poorly, while R.J. Barrett and Obi Toppin have proved to Knicks faithful, that they aren’t going to get better.

Isiah Quickley, despite his hype, was nowhere to be seen. The Knicks’ offense got punched in the mouth in the first and rode out the rest of the fight holding onto the bottom rope.