Evan Mobley identifies shift that doomed Cavs in Game 1 vs. Knicks

The Cleveland Cavaliers will be kicking themselves coming out of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday night. Cleveland had all but cemented a road win and stolen home-court advantage from the New York Knicks, as it had a 22-point lead with just under eight minutes to go at Madison Square Garden.

That’s where it all went wrong. The Knicks outscored the Cavs 44-11 the rest of the way, including overtime, to steal a 115-104 win and take a 1-0 lead in the series. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the Cavs. They couldn’t score efficiently, they stopped getting good looks, and they couldn’t get a key stop when they needed one on the other end.

After the game, star forward Evan Mobley discussed what went wrong as Cleveland took its foot off the gas and allowed New York to get back in the game.

Mobley on what it felt like in the moment in 4Q:

"I think we just slowed the pace up. I think we gotta keep playing fast even though we're up and not try to play the clock until later." pic.twitter.com/tfOKfr6UDz

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“I think we just slowed the pace up,” Mobley said. “I think we gotta keep playing fast even though we’re up and not try to play the clock until later. I feel like we tried to play the clock a little early, and they started going on their run. Gotta do a better job of keeping the pace up regardless of the score.”

The Cavs scored just eight points in the last seven minutes of regulation while the Knicks made their run, and it was clear to see why. Cleveland’s ball movement, which was excellent in the second and third quarters, completely went away, and Donovan Mitchell and James Harden couldn’t score at their usual clip in isolation.

Mobley pitched in the best he could, even knocking down a clutch 3-pointer late in regulation to try to keep the Knicks at arm’s length. However, the onslaught from Brunson along with contributions from Landry Shamet and Mikal Bridges were too much to overcome.

Now, the Cavs have to pick up the pieces from this loss and try to secure a split in Game 2. It won’t be easy to recover mentally with just one day off before Game 2 and fatigue from a pair of seven-game series setting in, but Cleveland must now show the resiliency that has gotten it to this point to get on level terms in this series.

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