The Biggest Reasons The Cavaliers Fell to the Knicks in Game One

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While a 101-97 loss to the New York Knicks is nothing to be happy about for Cavalier fans, it is not the world ending scenario it could have been.  They are still the better team with more talent.  They may be behind a bit on the coaching scale with JB Bickerstaff surrendering to Tom Thibodeau, but overall when you sit down and add everything up, the Cleveland Cavaliers should win this series.

If they are going to do that however, they need to improve in three area’s that absolutely killed them yesterday.

Second chance points

The Knicks had 17 offensive rebounds with almost every single one of them coming at a pivotal time in which the Cavaliers needed a stop.  10 of them resulted in 23 second chance points.  If the Cavaliers take half of those boards away, they win with ease.  Most of them came late in the fourth when Cleveland desperately needed the ball back when they were only down 2,3 or 4 points.  Evan Mobley needs to be better on the glass the rest of the series, it is that simple.

Darius Garland was shut down

The Knicks ran several double teams at Darius Garland and he simply could get his shooting flow going.  Garland only took 13 shots all game, and 10 of his 17 points came in the first half as he was almost completely locked up in the second half.

Donovan Mitchell was incredible with 38 points and single handily kept the Cavaliers in it late when they needed a run.  Mitchell was 6 of 16 from beyond the arc, but if the Cavaliers are going to make a run in this series, or the next if they advance, they need Garland to start scoring and work his way off those doubles when he can.

LeVert only had 3 points off the bench while Ricky Rubio only played 5 minutes and didn’t score.  With the exception of a couple of three balls from Cedi Osman, they get didn’t much from the bench.  With Okoro far from consistent on offense, and Mobley being held to 8, the role of Garland putting up atleast 30 becomes even more important.

The Knicks are not that good, the Cavaliers held them to 101 points, 9 times out of 10 if you hold the Knicks to 101 points, you’re going to win.  The Cavaliers need to get their top scorers going, rebound the ball and work past bad calls.  With Garland scoring and opening up the offense, those things can happen.

Get past bad officiating

Listen, I’m the last “blame the ref” guy you are doing to find, but these officials were awful yesterday.  The Cavaliers only had 18 team fouls, which isn’t nearly as much as it may sound, but the bottom line is that many of them came at terrible moments, and severely caused the flow of the game to change drastically.  The Cavaliers rallied to tie the game in the third, and then again in the fourth when a few bad calls back to back, allowed the Knicks to go on a run and create a large gap for the Cavaliers to work back from.

It could have been an out of bounds not called, a jump ball that should have been or a horrendous over the back call or faux reach in, everything went against Cleveland and they couldn’t get past it. Everyone wants to bury JB Bickerstaff but some things you simply cannot control and the refs are one of those things.  The calls were terrible, it was that simple!  However, even with that being said, you cannot let it derail you like it did yesterday.