CLEVELAND, OH-- The Cavs and Knicks traded punches in what felt like a heavyweight championship boxing match, with New York coming in to Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse and taking game 1 with a final score of 101-97. The Knicks came into this game with the 4th best points per game in the NBA with 117. Another storyline coming in was Julius Randle for the Knicks, he was a game time decision and ended up being healthy, going at it with Donovan Mitchell in the first half, he and Mitchell would be almost identical, with Randle scoring 16 first half points making 6 of his 13 FGs attempted, while Mitchell would score 18 first half points on 7 FGs made of 14 attempted.
Julius would finish the game with a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Donovan Mitchell would make history once again with an amazing performance, setting a record for most points scored in a Cavalier playoff debut in the franchise's history with 38 points, alongside 8 assists and 5 rebounds. Mitchell averages 28.3 ppg in his 40 career playoff games. The entire game was a slugfest, the game overall would see the Knicks lead for a majority, but late in the 2nd quarter the Cavs would make a push with a Darius Garland corner 3 pointer and a Mitchell steal and lay in to make the score 40-33 with around 6 minutes to go in the half. Garland would finish the game with 17 points, along with a good defensive effort with 4 steals. Cleveland would show some spurts of great defense, forcing the Knicks into multiple shot clock violations through out the night, along with continued scoring and lockdown defense, they would narrow down the first half New York lead to 5 at 50-45.
Along with trailing the Knicks in offensive rebounds, their bench also outscored Cleveland 37-14. These 2 teams as a whole all season loved to play in what the NBA defines as "clutch time", clutch time is when the scoring margin is within 5 points with 5 or fewer minutes left in the game, which was the case towards the end of game 1. The Knicks in the regular season were 23-22 in clutch time games while the Cavs were 24-21 in clutch time games.
The Cavs will look to get a very important game 2 win at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse Tuesday night, as for the remainder of the series (if it only takes 4 games) the Knicks hold home court advantage. You can hear all the Cavs playoff games on your flagship for Cleveland Cavaliers basketball Newsradio WTAM 1100 AM, 106.9 FM, the free iHeartRadio app, and HERE