The Knicks are one win away from the NBA Finals.
The orange and blue took a 2–0 lead into Cleveland on Saturday night with the chance to push the Cavaliers to the brink. They didn’t waste the opportunity. New York sliced up a porous Cleveland defense all night, jumping out to a 10-point lead after the first quarter and holding the Cavs at bay thereafter. Jalen Brunson finished with a game-high 30 points, but it was a team effort, as just about every Knick who stepped on the floor enjoyed a highlight moment.
More than anything, New York came out hungry. The Knicks can smell a Finals appearance and played like it. The Cavs, conversely, didn’t exhibit nearly enough desperate energy and are now on the ropes, facing a 3–0 hole that no NBA team has ever come back from.
As eyes shift to Monday’s Game 4, here are our three biggest takeaways from the Knicks' Saturday night win.
Everyone chipped in for the Knicks
The sense of togetherness these Knicks play with has been a joy to watch during the playoffs. More than that, it has been the key to New York’s success—something made crystal-clear with tonight’s win.
In winning Game 3 and bringing themselves to the verge of the NBA Finals, there wasn’t any one player who dominated for the Knicks. Instead, it was a group effort. Karl-Anthony Towns drove New York’s 37-point first quarter with 11 points to set the tone. Mikal Bridges added plenty of timely buckets in the second and third quarters as his excellent playoff run continued; he shot 11-for-15 from the field for 22 points. In the second half, Landry Shamet once again proved he was good for a couple of timely three-point shots after doing the same thing in New York's epic Game 1 comeback.
Then it was Brunson time. The superstar point guard slammed the door shut on Cleveland over the last 12 minutes to finish with 30 points despite missing all four of his three-point shots. He had more than enough energy to finish the job thanks to the contributions from up and down the roster.
New York racked up 27 assists on 43 made shots and shot 56% from the field. The performance exemplifies why the team has taken such a huge step forward in the playoffs after alternating between dominant and maddeningly inconsistent in the regular season—it’s now a group effort every night. The star power is obvious, but only great team basketball allows for six different players to record double-digit points in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals. Everyone is taking turns, understanding at a fundamental level that feeding the guy with the hot hand is a winning strategy, whether it’s Brunson or Shamet.
It also makes for an enjoyable product to watch. More importantly for the Knicks, this kind of empowerment across the roster usually leads to wins. It did tonight—and New York is on the edge of an NBA Finals appearance as a result.
The Cavaliers gave up
Facing a 2–0 deficit, you might think the Cavaliers would empty the tank to defend home court and get back in the series. Not in this case. While Cleveland kept things close for a bit, the amount of fight they showed appeared to dissolve over the course of the game to the point that, in the fourth quarter, there were possessions they literally got walked over.
Look at this mess.
— . (@dphoop2425) May 24, 2026
Sure, it’s late in the fourth quarter and you are down 14. Things haven't gone your way. But if you’re not even going to put a body in front of Jalen Brunson, you might as well walk off the floor and let someone else play out the string. That's a completely indefensible lack of effort.
Game 4 still carries a ton of weight for the Knicks
This series is over. Teams have taken a 3–0 series lead in the NBA playoffs 161 times, and never once has the trailing team won the series. Just four times in history, the trailing team has come back to force a Game 7, most recently in 2023, when the Celtics trailed 3–0 to the Heat, won three straight then ultimately lost Game 7 at home.
But while the winner of the series seems all but fated, just how they get there still could have massive implications. The Thunder and Spurs are locked in a heated battle in the Western Conference finals, with Oklahoma City holding a 2–1 lead heading into Game 4 tomorrow in San Antonio. If the Spurs can win and send the series back to OKC at 2–2, that means the series will go at least six games.
It would be tempting for the Knicks to let off the gas pedal a bit and let Game 4 go and settle for a gentleman’s sweep at Madison Square Garden. But that would be the wrong approach. There’s a chance they could finish this series on Monday night and immediately have a huge rest advantage over whichever team they wind up facing in the Finals.
How important is that edge? Well, coming into the Eastern Conference finals, the Knicks were coming off a sweep while the Cavaliers had just survived a seven-game series. It’s no surprise the Knicks have looked fresher on their feet.
The extra rest would give New York the chance to head into the Finals at full strength, while each extra game that takes place between the Thunder and Spurs saps that much more energy and shortens the turnaround time they have before taking on the Knicks.
Knicks fans might have tickets to Game 5 and be excited to cheer their team on as they finally make it back to the Finals for the first time since 1999, but it’s advantageous for the fans and team alike if they can close things out in Cleveland.
Relive the action as it happened with our live coverage of Game 3 below
How we got here...
- Game 1: Knicks 115, Cavs 104 (OT)
- Game 2: Knicks 109, Cavs 103
The Knicks have had an impressive run through the postseason thus far. After falling into a 2–1 hole against the Hawks in the first round, New York rattled off three straight wins to close the series, and then followed that up by sweeping the 76ers out of the second round. Now, they’re up 2–0 in the Eastern Conference finals and just two wins away from their first appearance in the NBA Finals since 1999.
Conversely, the Cavaliers have had to claw their way through every second of this postseason, with both their first-round series against the Raptors and second-round series agains the Pistons going to a decisive Game 7 before Cleveland emerged victorious. There’s a good chance that if the Cavaliers are going to advance through to the NBA Finals, they’ll need to survive another Game 7.
If there’s any saving grace for the Cavaliers, it’s that they’ve been here before. They trailed the Pistons 2–0 after two games in Detroit in the second round, and were able to bounce back and defend home court to send the series back to Detroit tied 2–2.
