{"id":662198,"date":"2026-05-24T11:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662198\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T11:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T11:45:12","slug":"the-knicks-are-the-new-bullies-of-the-east-and-soon-theyll-pick-on-a-team-their-own-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/662198\/","title":{"rendered":"The Knicks are the new bullies of the East \u2014 and soon, they’ll pick on a team their own size"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 The Knicks<\/a> beat an Atlanta Hawks team punching above its weight as a No. 6 seed. They beat a Philadelphia 76ers team that, despite upsetting the No. 2 Boston Celtics in the first round, finished the regular season just two games above the East\u2019s 10th seed.<\/p>\n

And now they\u2019ve taken a commanding 3-0 Eastern Conference Finals lead over a Cavaliers team few expected to survive long enough to reach the third round.<\/p>\n

Barring an all-time collapse \u2014 no team in NBA playoff history has ever blown a 3-0 series lead \u2014 your New York Knicks are headed to the NBA Finals.<\/a><\/p>\n

And aside from an early 1-2 scare against Atlanta in Round 1, they\u2019ve barely looked challenged on the road to the biggest stage the franchise has seen in a quarter-century.<\/p>\n

The Hawks lacked depth at center beyond Onyeka Okongwu and leaned heavily on 36-year-old C.J. McCollum and first-time All-Star Jalen Johnson. The Sixers gave the Knicks a compromised Joel Embiid fresh off an appendectomy.<\/p>\n

Now the Knicks are overwhelming a Cavaliers team that looks completely overmatched by the moment.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Knicks are simply that good.<\/p>\n

Maybe they really are the buzzsaw they were billed to become after assembling one of the deepest, most expensive rosters in basketball. Maybe they\u2019re so dominant they\u2019ve made every opponent look unworthy of sharing the floor in a championship conversation.<\/p>\n

Or maybe \u2014 just maybe \u2014 the road to the NBA Finals has opened as cleanly as any path we\u2019ve seen in years. Maybe the Knicks are making it look easy because it, in fact, is one of the easiest paths to biggest stage in a long time.<\/p>\n

The Knicks, of course, can only play who\u2019s in front of them.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t choose to face a Cleveland team coming off back-to-back seven-game series against the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons before turning around on one day\u2019s rest against a Knicks team that had nine days off after sweeping Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t choose for Atlanta to rest its entire rotation in the regular-season finale against the Miami Heat, effectively handing the Knicks a first-round matchup against the Hawks instead of Toronto.<\/p>\n

And they didn\u2019t choose for the Cavs to lay down in Game 3. The Cavs did that on their own because it\u2019s who they are.<\/p>\n

They do not have the DNA of a team set to comeback from down 0-3. They have the genetic makeup of a team that will lay down and get swept off of their own home floor.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the result felt inevitable.<\/p>\n

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert tried borrowing the Philadelphia blueprint by limiting ticket sales to Ohio residents through geolocation restrictions, just like the Sixers attempted in Round 2.<\/p>\n

It failed.<\/p>\n

Knicks fans flooded Rocket Arena anyway. The arena sound system \u2014 much like the one at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia \u2014 spent most of the night desperately trying to drown out chants of \u201cLet\u2019s go Knicks!\u201d echoing through enemy territory before Knicks fans waved goodbye as hometown supporters headed to the exits down 16 with two minutes left in the fourth.<\/p>\n

And just like the Philly series, Cleveland blew its best chance to steal momentum: Game 1, when the Cavs built a 22-point lead against a rusty Knicks team before collapsing during a devastating 44-11 New York run.<\/p>\n

The series has felt over ever since. There\u2019s only one question left now:<\/p>\n

By how much will the Knicks embarrass Cleveland when they finish the job Monday night?<\/p>\n

The Knicks closed out Atlanta with an unprecedented 51-point demolition in Game 6 of the first round. They ended the Sixers\u2019 season with a 30-point humiliation in Philadelphia to complete the sweep.<\/p>\n

Now they\u2019re doing the same thing to Cleveland.<\/p>\n

The Knicks have become the Eastern Conference bullies. And the only team their own size waiting on the other side appears to be whichever survivor emerges from the Western Conference Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the real fight begins. Because eventually the Knicks will have to stop picking on teams beneath them and trade punches with a legitimate heavyweight.<\/p>\n

Until then? They\u2019ll keep stuffing opponents into lockers and throwing away the key.<\/p>\n

And the Cavaliers \u2014 much like the Hawks and Sixers before them \u2014 have already stopped fighting back, the last game just a formality for the third team the Knicks will send to Cancun this season.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, MVP chants poured onto the court as Jalen Brunson went to the foul line up 12 with 40 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Brunson scored a game-high 30 points, leading a game all five starters scored in double figures. The Knicks also got 14 points off the bench from Landry Shamet, including a buzzer-beating corner three directly in front of Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson.<\/p>\n

Atkinson threw a mini tantrum then sat in his chair, the look of defeat on a coach knowing what comes next.<\/p>\n

History says the New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers are saying it without saying it, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Knicks beat an Atlanta Hawks team punching above its weight as a No. 6 seed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[52468,62393,25169,355,99],"class_list":["post-662198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cavaliers","tag-eastern-conference-finals","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}