3 Keys to Cavs beating Knicks in Eastern Conference Finals

The Cleveland Cavaliers are four games away from the NBA Finals. Here’s how they can get ‘em.

1. Clean the Glass

Everyone remembers 2023. If you don’t, I’ll quickly remind you.

The Cavs were thumped 4-1 by the New York Knicks in this core’s first playoff run together. Primarily, the Cavs found themselves being thrashed on the offensive glass.

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A lot has changed since then.

For starters, the Knicks have traded out some bruising rebounders like Julius Randle, Isaiah Hartenstein, and RJ Barrett for more finesse-oriented players such as Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, and OG Anunoby. That hasn’t made them a bad rebounding team by any means (they’re still an elite defensive rebounding team), but it’s changed them from being a grit-and-grind squad to a team that relies on skill. They don’t live and die on offensive boards as much as they did in the past.

Cleveland, meanwhile, has made plenty of changes of their own. Both Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley have come a long way since taking those lumps and have turned in the best two rounds of their postseason careers. And, players like James Harden and Max Strus give the Cavs a better chance at gang-rebounding than either Darius Garland or Cedi Osman provided back in 2023.

Yeah, like I said, a lot has changed. But some things stay the same. Winning the possession battle will be a key here.

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The Knicks rank 5th in offensive rebounding percentage out of 16 teams to reach the playoffs this season. This is still one of their strengths. As for the Cavs, they’re just 14th in defensive rebounding percentage — meaning they’ve been getting beat on the glass for most of the postseason.

That could spell trouble. Though it’s worth noting that Detroit ranked 2nd in offensive rebounding for the season, while Toronto was 13th. The Knicks had a much more favorable route from this perspective, facing the 76ers (10th in offensive rebounding rate) and the Hawks (20th).

The final dose of context here is that Cleveland actually ranks first in offensive rebounding among 16 playoff teams. For all they might give up defensively, they’ve made up for…

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Publish date : 2026-05-19 16:02:00

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