Knicks rout Cavaliers, move one win from NBA Finals berth

The Knicks did more than take control of the Eastern Conference finals. They turned a 121-108 win over Cleveland into another emphatic reminder that this postseason run has become its own category, with New York now one victory from the NBA Finals and up 3-0 in the series.

Jalen Brunson scored 30 points in Game 3, Mikal Bridges added 22, OG Anunoby had 21 and Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 13, a spread of production that has defined New York's surge. Cleveland got 24 from Evan Mobley, 23 from Donovan Mitchell, 19 from James Harden and 17 from Jarrett Allen, but the Cavaliers could not keep pace with the Knicks' ability to keep scoring from multiple spots on the floor. Mike Brown has pointed to the group’s accountability, communication and competitive spirit, and those traits have shown up in the box scores as New York has kept widening every series.

The larger story is the scale of the run. New York has won 10 straight playoff games since Game 3 of the first round, when it trailed Atlanta 2-1. The Knicks then closed the Hawks out with three straight wins, swept Philadelphia in the second round and have now beaten Cleveland three times. Those 10 victories came by a combined 225 points, the most one-sided 10-game stretch in NBA history, regular season or playoffs. The streak has also included five straight double-digit playoff victories, tying the longest such run ever in the postseason.

That is what makes this feel different from a typical hot streak. The Knicks are not living on one shooting binge or one matchup flaw. They are stacking margins against three different opponents, all while carrying a roster that has delivered in waves from Brunson, Bridges, Anunoby and Towns. The 10-game streak is tied for the fifth-longest in a single postseason, and the point differential has already passed the franchise’s previous 10-game benchmark from 1969, when New York outscored opponents by 168 points on the way to an NBA title.

The stakes now are historic as well as immediate. New York is back in the conference finals for the second straight season after reaching the round for the first time in 25 years last year, but the franchise has not reached the NBA Finals since 1999 and has not won the Eastern Conference since 1999. Game 4 will be Monday in Cleveland, and another win would send the Knicks into their first Finals in 27 years with a run that looks built to survive far beyond a normal spring surge.