The Cleveland Cavaliers were up 22 points in the second half. They had Donovan Mitchell going. They had control of Madison Square Garden, which is supposed to be impossible. They were on the verge of stealing Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals and breaking the Knicks’ confidence in front of 20,000 fans who showed up expecting a coronation.
Then Jalen Brunson decided the Cavs weren’t leaving with that game.
Brunson finished with 38 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 steals as the Knicks erased the deficit and won 115-104 in overtime. New York outscored Cleveland 44-11 in the final 7 minutes and 40 seconds of the fourth quarter and overtime combined. That stretch is not a typo. The Knicks scored four times more points than the Cavs in nearly eight minutes of playoff basketball.
This is what Brunson does. He doesn’t have the body of a superstar. He’s listed at 6-foot-2 in shoes and probably an inch shorter than that. He doesn’t have elite athleticism. He just has every skill a guard could possibly have and zero fear in the biggest moments.
The Cavs threw Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen at him on switches. He went under the screen and pulled. They sent doubles. He hit Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart in the corner for threes. They tried to ice him at the end of the shot clock. He drew a foul and went 14-of-14 from the line.
Donovan Mitchell scored 35 points himself, but the Cavs got nothing else. Darius Garland was 5-of-16. Mobley had a quiet 14. The defense that carried Cleveland through the first two rounds completely abandoned them in the fourth quarter, when Brunson was hunting every possession.
This was the kind of game that decides series. The Cavs had their best chance to steal home court. They went up by 22. They were on the road. They had Mitchell rolling. And they lost. That’s the kind of loss that lingers in a locker room and gets brought up every time things start going sideways the rest of the way.
Tom Thibodeau didn’t have to do much. He kept Brunson on the floor. He trusted his guy. The Knicks have been built around Brunson since he signed in 2022, and every postseason he validates that decision by playing the best basketball of his career when the lights are brightest.
The Knicks now have a 1-0 lead with Game 2 on Wednesday night, also at the Garden. If they win that, the Cavs have to win four of five with two of them in New York. Cleveland is now in a hole they dug themselves and they did it by blowing a 22-point lead to a guard who looks like an accountant.
The Knicks went into this series as the underdog. After what Brunson just did, that label has been retired. New York is the better team right now. Madison Square Garden gets to host another Conference Finals win Wednesday. And the Cavs have to figure out how to stop a player nobody seems able to stop.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
