New York Knicks beat Cleveland Cavaliers 109-93 at home on Thursday, May 21 in a low-scoring game: just 202 combined points between the two teams.
How it unfolded
Points were hard to come by. The leading team scored 109, and neither team reached 110. The Knicks led by 4 at halftime and kept control.
What decided it
The Knicks shot 59.4% on an effective basis to 44.4% for the Cavaliers and the Knicks gave the ball away on 6.5% of their possessions while the Cavaliers did so 9% of the time. Shot quality is the biggest of the four factors, and it was the clearest gap.
The Cavaliers did win one battle, the free-throw line: FT rate of 27.5 against 9.4. The Knicks made up for it elsewhere.
The game played at about 91 possessions per team. The Knicks scored 120.3 points per 100 possessions and the Cavaliers scored 102.6, a difference of 17.7.
Who made the difference
Josh Hart (NYK) posted the best line of the night by Game Score (20.4): 26 pts, 4 reb, 7 ast on 10-21 shooting. The team was +18 in the minutes Josh played.
For the Cavaliers, Donovan Mitchell was the best of the rest at 15.8: 26 pts, 4 reb, 1 ast on 8-18 shooting.
Karl-Anthony Towns (18 pts, 13 reb, 1 ast), Jalen Brunson (19 pts, 3 reb, 14 ast), and Jarrett Allen (13 pts, 10 reb, 0 ast) each recorded a double-double.
Game Score is a single number that weighs points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, shooting efficiency, fouls and turnovers. It is not an official stat, just a quick way to rank lines.
What it means
The result fit the pre-game Win Meter, which gave the Knicks about a 77% chance.
Across the last 8 meetings in our records, Cleveland Cavaliers lead 5-3.
Written automatically by Tip Off Live software from box score data. Ratings and probabilities are our own model estimates.