The Cleveland Cavaliers and the New York Knicks are playing a home-and-home series to close out the regular season, and clearly, there is no love lost between both teams.
On Monday night, LeBron James stepped on the Madison Square Garden floor, with the mean troll game, and led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a comfortable 123-109 win over the New York Knicks.
In their previous showdown at the Garden, LeBron got testy with some of the Knicks players, mainly Enes Kanter and Frank Ntilikina, before he led the Cavaliers on a roaring comeback win after falling behind by 23 points. After the game, he posted a photo on Instagram of him standing on the Knicks logo, in the middle of the Garden floor, with the caption “You’re welcome..King of NY.”
Kanter didn’t appreciate the apparent disrespect from LeBron and fired back with a response in November, but LeBron put that beef to bed on Monday with his signature “I’m King” 15s he wore, and to add insult to injury, he danced his way to 26 points and 11 assists against the fully disarmed Knicks-tank.
Expect more of the same from LeBron in the last game of the season. In his last three games, he’s almost averaging a triple-double (34.3 ppg, 12 apg, 8.7 rpg).
While LeBron has clearly been the catalyst for the Cavaliers, it’s hard to determine who has been the catalyst on the Knicks lately. Trey Burke has cooled off a bit since his career-high 42 point performance against the Hornets, and Michael Beasley’s play has tapered off a bit towards the end of the season. At the moment, the Knicks do not have a clear number one option, which makes it hard to decide what player statements to go with.
Stats to look out for
There isn’t a matchup to look out for in this game, but there’s a specific stat that should be off the charts for this game — three-point shooting. Both teams have been letting it fly from deep early and often in their last three games. The Cavaliers are averaging 16 made threes, and they made an impressive 19 threes in their last game against the Knicks, and the Knicks are averaging 12.7 made threes, which includes 18 threes made against a staunch Miami Heat defense.
Here are my recommended selections, on statementgames.com, for the Knicks in their final game of the season:
LeBron James OVER 9.5 Assists
New York Knicks OVER 8.5 Three Pt FGs
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