Every spring, a team wins a playoff series quickly. It goes days, maybe even a week, without playing an NBA game. And then the same public debate emerges:
Is the rest worth the rust?
The answer is always, yes. If it weren’t, teams would organize intense scrimmages during the long break. But no one ever has — and the Eastern Conference Finals are showing why.
On one side is the New York Knicks, who now lead the series 3-0. After a second-round sweep, they received nine days off prior to the series. On the other is the Cleveland Cavaliers, whose first- and second-round bouts each went seven games. The Cavs have been playing every other day and traveling constantly for the past month.
They are showing it.
Not because they collapsed in the fourth quarter of Game 1, when they ran out of energy. Not because they have lost three consecutive games to begin this series. And not because their jumpers are all missing.
Cleveland has hit just 29.4 percent of its 3-point attempts against the Knicks. But instead of breaking down what’s happened, let’s look at how all this clanking has gone down.
The Cavs aren’t just missing jumpers; they’re not even able to power those jumpers past the front of the rim.
I watched all of Cleveland’s 3-pointers against New York (excluding full-court heaves) and tracked where each one landed. Sixty-six percent of the Cavaliers’ misses from deep have erred short, the greatest sign of a team with dead legs. Every once in a while, a wild jumper shanks right or left. But more commonly, shots are on target, just too powerful or not powerful enough.
Fifty-nine Cavs 3s have hit the front of the hoop or airballed before arriving there. Twenty-two have missed long. The trend has become more extreme as the series has continued. In Game 3, 22 of their 29 3-point misses (76 percent) were short.
The Knicks are on fire on both sides of the ball. They have swarmed Cleveland defensively. On top of that, before Game 3, head coach Mike Brown suggested they had also gotten “lucky” with the Cavs missing some makeable shots.
But sometimes, what appears as luck could be a mere consequence of reality. The Knicks are rested. And the Cavs haven’t stopped moving for weeks.
