Bing Bong: 3 Things That Explain This Knicks/Cavs Series

Heliocentrism, regression to the mean, and, yes, Harden's defense

Shorter piece today — in Kansas City for Nike EYBL! Enjoy!

Typically, it feels as though the Knicks are a team whose fans get too excited too early, proclaiming that they’re going to win the NBA Championship. This time, though, they might be right. And they’ll be even closer to being right if this series against the Cavaliers finishes the way it’s started.

The Knicks are currently up 2-0 with the Cavs in a bit of a chokehold. Today, I want to take a look at three things that are defining this beatdown of a series. One is obvious — it rhymes with Thames Garden — while the others are things that could help the Cavs fight back.

But first, let’s start with Thames Garden.

Exploiting The Beard

Much has been made of James Harden’s defense in this series, especially with Knicks head coach Mike Brown specifically calling out how they attacked The Beard down the stretch. Sometimes I feel like we over-exaggerate “Player X got attacked by Player Y” narratives. This is not one of those times.

According to the NBA’s tracking data, the Knicks have shot 62.2% from the field with James Harden as the primary defender. They’ve scored a whopping 56 points on Harden, and Brunson has gone from a 47% shooter in the regular season to a 61% shooter. This is a nightmare scenario for the Cavs. Every single possession starts with the goal of putting Harden on a singular island, and it’s worked wonderfully for the Knicks thus far:

When you take a look at the play-by-play data, Cleveland’s defense has been a whopping 23.2 points per 100 possessions worse with Harden on the court. That’s diabolically bad, and there’s no clear solution.

The Harden question will be the hardest one to solve in this series, yet it is also the most crucial to the Cavs trying to get back into the limelight here. If he continues to get exploited at this level, it’s going to doom the team.