Danhausen put a curse on the Cleveland Cavaliers before Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, and the New York Knicks still found a way to win. New York erased a 22-point fourth-quarter deficit and beat Cleveland 115-104 in overtime in the 2026 NBA playoffs opener.
The Knicks were down 93-71 with 7:52 left before storming back with a 44-11 run to finish regulation, then closed it out in overtime. It was the second-largest comeback in the fourth quarter of a postseason game since 1997, a result that turned what looked like a rout into one of the most stunning playoff swings in recent memory.
Danhausen, who has built a wrestling persona around placing curses that seem to land in strange and inconvenient ways, had gone to Madison Square Garden ahead of Game 1 wearing his own Knicks jersey. On 's NBA Today, he targeted Cleveland after previously appearing on First Take during WWE's promotion of WrestleMania 42, when he cursed Knicks fan Stephen A. Smith and, by extension, seemed to bend New York's fate in the other direction.
That earlier spell became part of the Knicks' playoff story in its own right. The Atlanta Hawks took a 2-1 lead after Danhausen cursed Smith, then Danhausen later said someone paid him “human monies” to lift the curse off New York. The Knicks won three straight games after that and advanced, then followed with a sweep of the Philadelphia 76ers in the second round. noted on First Take on May 19 that New York was 6-0 since the curse was lifted.
Now the pattern has flipped again, at least for one night. Before Game 1 against Cleveland, Danhausen tried to redirect the supernatural spotlight toward the Cavaliers. After the game, he said he wanted courtside seats between Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner so the Cleveland curse can continue. The joke fits his act, but the results around the Knicks have started to look less like a bit and more like a postseason storyline that keeps attaching itself to the box score.
Danhausen first appeared in WWE at Elimination Chamber in February after a run with All Elite Wrestling from 2022-26. His gimmick is simple enough to understand and strange enough to keep working: he curses people, teams or situations, and the outcomes appear to go sideways in ways nobody can quite explain. For New York, that has meant a first-round collapse-turned-comeback, a second-round sweep and now another miracle against Cleveland when the game looked over with 7:52 left.
The real test now is whether the Cavaliers can separate their series from the noise around it. But after the Knicks came back from 22 down in the fourth and won in overtime, the conversation around this matchup is no longer only about defense, shot selection or pace. It is also about whether Danhausen has once again found a way to turn a playoff series into a curse that the Knicks can somehow survive.
