The Cavaliers are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals after beating the Pistons 125-94 in Game 7 on Sunday to win the series 4-3. Cleveland will face the Knicks, setting up a matchup between the conference’s third- and fourth-place teams after both needed long, bruising playoff runs to get here.
For the Knicks, the trip has been built on one-sided wins. They have won seven of their eight playoff games by double figures, including four by 29 points or more, and they clinched against the Sixers in Game 4 in historic fashion with their franchise-record seventh straight postseason win. Through the first two rounds, New York outscored the Hawks and Sixers by an average of 19.4 points per game, the best margin for any team through two rounds in the 43 years of a 16-team playoff format.
Cleveland has taken a different road. The Cavaliers needed seven games to eliminate the Raptors and then needed seven more to get past top-seeded Detroit, surviving a postseason that has already tested their depth and their legs. The matchup now shifts to a team that had already seen the Knicks twice in the regular season, and New York won two of those three meetings. The Cavaliers won the Feb. 24 game after acquiring James Harden, a reminder that the season series did not fully capture how much both teams changed by spring.
The numbers suggest the Knicks have been playing well above what opponents have been able to force from them. Tracking data showed New York had overachieved relative to its expected field goal percentage more than any other playoff team, with OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns all ranking among the top eight players in expected field goal percentage overachievement. That efficiency has helped the Knicks survive a stretch in which Anunoby suffered a strained hamstring in Game 2 of the conference semifinals, and it has come alongside fierce defensive work that held opponents to 31.2% shooting from 3-point range and 31.7% on wide-open 3-point attempts.
That kind of balance is what makes the series so difficult to read. The Hawks and Sixers tried to attack Towns and Jalen Brunson in pick-and-roll actions, while the Cavaliers are expected to put Brunson and Towns in ball-screen actions early and often in this series. Cleveland’s path has also left less margin for error than New York’s, and the contrast matters: the Knicks have looked fresh enough to keep blowing teams out, while the Cavaliers arrive after two straight seven-game series.
Many people expected this matchup seven months ago, when the season felt like a preview of a round that never quite lined up until now. The teams finished third and fourth in the conference, both entered the year with clear expectations, and both have stayed on course long enough to meet with the East still unsettled. The winner will move one step from becoming the conference’s representative in the Finals and could leave the East with its fourth different team in the last four years.
