Before the 2025-26 season began, a New York Knicks vs. Cleveland Cavaliers Eastern Conference finals felt almost preordained. With the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers presumably out of the mix and no other obvious contenders in the picture, the widespread expectation was that last year’s No. 1 seed and the postseason runner-up would eventually find their way to one another with a trip to the Finals on the line.
And then, once the games actually started, the perceived likelihood of this exact matchup started to plummet. Cleveland limped its way out of the gate. New York’s hot start gave way to a disastrous early January swoon. The Pistons and Celtics ascended. Neither the Knicks nor the Cavaliers earned top-two seeds in the conference.
Today, neither is the team we expected they’d be in October. They’ve both had to change to get here. In Cleveland’s case, that change was more literal. They turned Darius Garland into James Harden and shuffled their bench. In New York’s case, it was spiritual. Last year’s players are mostly in place, but throughout the season and especially through their ongoing seven-game playoff winning streak, the ways in which Mike Brown is deploying them have changed drastically.
So these are technically the uniforms we expected in this matchup… but they aren’t quite the teams we thought we’d get here. That makes the matchup dynamics a bit more complicated than we might have expected when we penciled the Knicks and Cavaliers into the Eastern Conference finals last summer. So with that series now at hand, let’s attempt to answer the five biggest questions going into the series.
1. Who’s Cleveland’s fifth starter?
Statistically speaking, no one has defended Jalen Brunson better this season than Dean Wade. Across three regular-season matchups, Brunson shot 1 of 15 from the floor when Wade was his primary defender, according to NBA.com tracking data. In total, 16 other players defended Brunson for at least 15 shots. He made at least five against everyone besides Wade.
But Wade is as close to an offensive zero as it gets right now. He played 106 total minutes in the last five games of the Detroit series — and attempted just seven shots in those games. Ready for a mind-boggling stat? Dean Wade hasn’t made a free throw since January. As helpful as he can be on Brunson, he gives a lot of that value back on the other end, since he’s such an easy hiding place for Brunson on so many defensive possessions.
By Game 7 of the Pistons series, the Cavaliers decided they could no longer play 4-on-5. Max Strus took Wade’s spot in the starting lineup. He’s the best balance of offense and defense among Cleveland’s three realistic choices for fifth starter, with Sam Merrill representing the offensive extreme. He also started against a very different New York team in 2023, when his Miami Heat knocked them out in the second round. But Strus has no hope whatsoever against Brunson, at least one-on-one. Cleveland would have to scheme help in his direction.
The early guess here would be that Wade continues to start, but Strus plays more minutes. That was the case in the Detroit series. Starting Wade offers only one necessary utility: defending the opposing point guard. Bringing him off the bench makes it harder to align his minutes with Brunson’s, when he’s needed here.
Still, expect Cleveland to try a bunch of defenders on Brunson early in the series, because if there is a way to survive defensively without Wade cramping the offense, that would probably be Cleveland’s preference. Dennis Schröder is a certified point-of-attack pest. Even Keon Ellis might get a swing at Brunson. This is a much more favorable matchup for him size-wise than Cade Cunningham was. The first two games should see a relatively deep rotation for Cleveland. Kenny Atkinson will trim it as he goes.
2. How do the defenses align, and who wins the switch-hunting war?
The Knicks won the first two matchups of the season. Cleveland won the last, settling on the defensive alignment most teams have preferred against the Knicks: sticking their center on Josh Hart. Cleveland is going to dare Hart to make 3s and allow Jarrett Allen to hang out by the paint until he does. Evan Mobley likely gets the harder Karl-Anthony Towns matchup (we’ll detail that one a bit more later) with the idea that he can switch onto anyone who runs a pick-and-roll with him. Cleveland will adjust as needed, but this is all pretty straightforward fare.
The Knicks have a harder question here. In OG Anunoby, they have one of the few players in the NBA who can truly defend anyone. Should they put him on one of the guards? If so, which one? He’s traditionally guarded Donovan Mitchell in prior matchups with Cleveland, but Cleveland just spent seven games finding different ways to get Mitchell away from an elite defender in Ausar Thompson.
You could argue Anunoby would be more impactful guarding Mobley, both to shut him down individually and, more importantly, to switch onto either Mitchell or Harden in a pick-and-roll. The Harden-Mobley pick-and-roll in particular became the bedrock of Cleveland’s offense as the Pistons series progressed. Taking it away will be vital, and Mikal Bridges is coming off an excellent defensive series against Tyrese Maxey. He can be a bit too contact-averse when navigating screens, but there’s a trip to the Finals on the line. If he’s locked in, he can at least make Mitchell work.
We’ve mentioned the concept of switching a fair bit here, and Cleveland and New York both happen to have defenders who can guard across the entire positional spectrum. They also have a pair of guards with giant bullseyes on their backs.
Atlanta’s offense only really functioned in the first round when CJ McCollum hunted Jalen Brunson. Detroit attacked James Harden pretty relentlessly and found success despite having far less space to work with than the Knicks will. Harden would rather run pick-and-roll with Mobley, and Brunson would rather run pick-and-roll with Towns, but a lot of this series is going to revolve around those two getting screens from whoever their counterpart is guarding. Brunson will hunt Harden and Harden will hunt Brunson. Really, everyone will hunt Brunson and everyone will hunt Harden.
New York’s help infrastructure is stouter than Cleveland’s. The Cavaliers have more ball-handlers equipped to punish those mismatches. Mitchell will get in on the fun as well, and inverted pick-and-rolls featuring Mobley as the ball-handler were a major weapon against Detroit. Ultimately, either Brunson or Harden will have to get one-on-one stops if their team is going to win this series.
3. Are the lights still too bright?
The last time Cleveland faced New York in the playoffs, Mitchell Robinson punked Jarrett Allen so badly that it created a meme that still lives to this day when Allen infamously reported that “the lights were brighter than expected.” He averaged just 9.4 points and 7.4 rebounds in a five-game defeat. More pertinently, the Knicks rebounded more than 39% of their own misses. Robinson had 29 offensive rebounds in 141 minutes of that series. Mobley and Allen combined for 30 in 379 minutes.
The Knicks are going to win the rebounding battle in this series. That much is almost a given. Cleveland has never derived the rebounding advantage that teams starting two big men typically expect. The Knicks lead the playoffs in rebounding by a mile. Cleveland just needs to stop the bleeding. These are both low-turnover offenses, so some semblance of competition on the glass will be critical to keeping the possession battle within reach.
The individual Allen concerns have been assuaged by some huge recent playoff games. He was up and down against Toronto, but delivered a 22-point, 19-rebound Game 7 that swung the series. He was more consistent against Detroit, and while Brunson will be Cleveland’s preferred target, they’re going to run a lot of pick-and-roll at Karl-Anthony Towns as well. He’s been far better on that front defensively this season, but he’s so vulnerable to foul trouble that keeping him involved in actions has a major potential payoff.
If the Knicks put two on the ball, Allen’s a deceptively crafty short-roll passer who can also finish with authority. He had Isaiah Hartenstein to contend with at the rim in 2023. Now Hartenstein is gone, and the Knicks give up plenty of looks at the basket. He’s theoretically positioned for a good series so long as he doesn’t let Robinson bully him to the extent he did last time.
4. Can Karl-Anthony Towns keep up the good and minimize the bad?
Karl-Anthony Towns is leading the 2026 postseason in basically every all-in-one metric. He currently has the fourth-highest Box Plus-Minus in playoff history, trailing only peak Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard. He’s shooting 59-48-90. He’s leading the Knicks in both playoff rebounds and assists.
The former was mostly predictable. The latter, at least on paper, is a puzzler. This is Towns’ sixth trip to the playoffs, but his seven-highest playoff assist totals have all come in New York’s current seven-game winning streak. Towns spent most of the season publicly griping about his role in the Knicks’ offense. In Game 4 of the Hawks series, they figured it out. Towns is the stationary point center. He operates as the offensive hub from the wing, and with Brunson serving as a far more willing and effective off-ball mover and screener, Towns has been absolutely lethal at dissecting opposing defenses.
Most defenders have no good solution. Mike Brown used similar offensive principles with Domantas Sabonis in Sacramento, but defenses just laid off of him to try to take those passes away. Lay off of Towns and he’s going to kill you with 3s. Most bigs aren’t quick enough to stay with him on drives. This is part of why teams so frequently defend him with wings. Towns can get a bit reckless when he’s dribbling. He leads the NBA in offensive fouls by a country mile.
Mobley is the rare big who can actually balance all of the competing needs of guarding this version of Towns. He’s big enough, he’s quick enough and he’s smart enough to vex this updated version of the Knicks offense. Until Hart proves he can make the 3s Allen gives him, Cleveland will be able to live with Mobley spending more of his time on the perimeter.
Brown has had more than a week to devise counters, and doing so will be vital. A frustrated Towns is a foul-prone Towns. He’s averaging almost four of them per game in the playoffs even with things mostly going his way. That was acceptable against the Hawks and 76ers. It won’t be against Cleveland. Just being on the court warps defenses in the ways the Knicks need for their offense to hum as it has.
The fouling is maddening for Towns because it’s all so avoidable. He’s not getting into trouble playing overly aggressive defense. The issues arrive when he’s reckless on offense and lets his emotions get the better of him in isolated settings. The Knicks have stomached those dumb fouls for two years now. The stakes are too high at this point. It’s the only flaw in Towns’ otherwise sterling postseason. If he can’t stay out of foul trouble, things tilt in Cleveland’s favor pretty quickly.
5. How healthy is OG Anunoby?
Oh, you thought the Towns numbers were bonkers? How’s this: Anunoby is shooting 62-43-81 this postseason. He has almost as many steals (15) as he does missed 3-pointers (18). He’s out-rebounding Jarrett Allen this postseason. This is an all-time role player postseason. Or, at least, it was headed in that direction before he strained his hamstring.
Hamstrings are tricky. The one he suffered in Game 2 of the second round against Indiana in 2024 effectively ended his series. This one was thankfully less severe, just a Grade 1. His recovery process included far less pressure. The Knicks were fighting for their lives against the Pacers two years ago. They breezily swept Philadelphia without Anunoby in the last two games of the second round. Then they got a nine-day break before their next game. To put that gap into perspective, the All-Star break is eight days.
The Knicks need Anunoby at relatively close to 100% to win this series. He’s their defensive skeleton key. Bridges isn’t physical enough to take on the matchups Anunoby does, and Hart isn’t big enough. That he’s also shooting like a long-lost Curry brother is just the cherry on top. We’ll know more in Game 1, but the Knicks will have to recalibrate their entire approach if Anunoby is anything less than his best self.
