One key question has flown under the radar as the Knicks and Cavaliers prepare to begin their opening-round, best-of-seven playoff series on Saturday in Cleveland:
What will happen in the clutch?
The answer to that may give the underdog Knicks an edge, at least based on how the two teams performed during the regular season.
“It’s interesting because Cleveland, on a spreadsheet, looks like a title contender, but they have really struggled in clutch games all season,” ESPN analyst JJ Redick said on a Zoom call. “They have sort of been a .500 team all season [in close games] and they have had more double-digit wins than any other team, I think. So, you have that. And then, on the other end, you have Jalen Brunson who has been one of the best clutch performers all season. And I expect most of these games to be close games.”
The Cavaliers were 19-21 in games decided by single digits.
The Knicks, by contrast, were 24-22, although two of those setbacks were the final two games of the season, when they were playing out the string and sitting key players.
Prior to those two contests, they won 10 of their last 15 games that were decided by fewer than 10 points.
As Redick mentioned, Brunson was elite in big spots.
In the clutch, which is defined by the NBA as a scoring margin within five points in the final five minutes of a game, Brunson averaged four points per game and shot 51.6 percent, along with an offensive rating of 117.4.
As good a season as Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell had, averaging a career-high of 28.3 points on 48.4 percent shooting from the field, his clutch numbers lagged, producing 3.5 points in that span on 40.5 percent shooting and a 108.5 offensive rating.
The Cavaliers’ offensive rating in the clutch was poor by their standards, at 107.3, compared to the overall number of 115.5.
But Cleveland did have a far better net rating (how a team fares per 100 possessions) in the clutch than the Knicks, with plus-3.0 versus minus-10.7.
The two teams played four relatively close games during the season, three of them won by the Knicks.
Only one was close in the final minutes, although all four were up for grabs entering the last quarter.
Mitchell dominated the first quarter of the first encounter, while Brunson was at his best in the last meeting.
“I think this is one of the most evenly-matched series actually in the first round,” Redick said.
He added: “It’s really going to come down to, I think, the nuance of matchups late game, who ends up on who and who they decide to target for both teams.”
Reggie Miller, who is calling the series for TNT, agreed with Redick that the series can go either way.
Neither team has a wealth of postseason series under its belt, and as good as the Cavaliers were during the regular season — winning 51 games with the league’s top defending rating of 106.2 — this is new territory for them.
“[Cleveland] is still an unproven commodity come playoff time,” Miller said. “I love the pairing [of] Mitchell and [Darius] Garland. I love their bigs. But let’s face it, they also don’t have playoff experience, along with the New York Knicks. But Jalen Brunson — we all saw what he did last year with Luka [Doncic] in Dallas. That’s why, to me, it’s a pick-em series.”
