Kenny Atkinson revisits his ‘analytically’ comment, then the Knicks beat the Cavaliers on the boards again

Before the first Knicks-Cavaliers game since last season’s Eastern Conference finals, Kenny Atkinson was asked again about his “analytically” comment. A few hours later, the Knicks beat Cleveland 109-97 at Rocket Arena on Saturday night, and Atkinson spent his postgame news conference explaining why his team keeps losing to them.

In May, after New York took a 3-0 series lead, Atkinson said Cleveland had “won” two of the three games by expected score, an analytics measure. The Knicks won Game 4 130-93 the next day to finish the sweep, then beat San Antonio in the Finals. The line followed Atkinson into this season, and Knicks players have joked about it publicly.

“I think when you look back on it and take the context of the question, I’m not sure that was taken into account, which I know is a little bit of a lesson for me,” Atkinson said before the game. “You can just take a sound bite, but no one kind of looked at the question. I would just say there was no coach more complimentary of the Knicks and honest about our performance and how they dominated us. So you live and learn a little bit with those things.”

He said the question had been what hope the Cavaliers had down 3-0. “We get a lot of information, and I wasn’t lying in that sense,” he said. “But in no sense was it like, ‘Oh man, we deserve to be winning.’ Zero, zero, zero thought of that.”

#Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson asked about his famed “analytically speaking” comment down 0-3 in the Eastern Conference Finals to #Knicks prior to tonight’s game. Great answer here from Atkinson pic.twitter.com/DSoR09Jz9u

— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) November 7, 2026

Knicks coach Mike Brown, who coached the Cavaliers twice, said he never gave the original comment much thought, because “you never know what’s going on in somebody else’s locker room.”

The glass again

The game followed the pattern of that series. Jalen Brunson scored 31 points with nine assists, including 18 straight New York points in the second quarter that turned a 39-37 deficit into a 52-45 lead. Karl-Anthony Towns had 29 points and 13 rebounds. New York outrebounded Cleveland 49-40 and had 16 offensive rebounds to the Cavaliers’ 10.

“Rebounding. I think we’re minus 10 in a possession game. You can’t give them 10 more shots than us,” Atkinson said after the loss. “They’re too good to give those extra possessions. That’s their strength. They’re one of the top possession teams in the league. We didn’t handle it well tonight.”

He also pointed to New York’s continuity. “They really have solutions,” Atkinson said. “They’re on a string on both ends. Whatever you throw at them, they find a solution. And then the rebounding thing, the last three, four games we played against them, you go toe-to-toe and they end up beating you on the boards.”

Brown said the same thing from the other side. “Our guys are continuing to buy into our ability to crash and make good offense come from missed shots,” he said. “We took the right shots, and they didn’t always go in, but our ability to go get it off the glass was huge.” He named Andre Drummond, who had eight rebounds in 14 minutes off the bench, the Knicks’ defensive player of the game, and praised Miles McBride, Mohamed Diawara and Jordan Clarkson. “Ugly game, but just a good win by our guys,” Brown said. “Anytime you can get a win, especially with us starting out 0-3, we’ll take it.”

Mike Brown on Knicks 109-97 W vs Cavs: "Ugly game but good win…build some positive equity…taking care ball 1st half…important on road…great production bench…Miles, Mo, Andre, Jordan. Our DPOG was Andre Drummond, heckuva performance…Our guys buying into our ability to crash… pic.twitter.com/TBEg7I3HgS

— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) November 8, 2026

Mitchell’s 37 not enough

Donovan Mitchell scored a season-high 37 points, 21 of them in the fourth quarter, on the second night of a back-to-back. James Harden had seven points on 2-of-9 shooting. Cleveland was again without Jarrett Allen (knee), Jaylon Tyson (ankle) and Sam Merrill (elbow).

“It’s really impressive physically just to be able to go on a back-to-back, to go at it like that,” Atkinson said of Mitchell. “He kept at it, didn’t quit, kept after it.” He said the Cavaliers never got over the hump in the fourth: “Didn’t help the shots weren’t falling. We had some good looks. You need a couple threes to go in, and it just didn’t fall.”

Both teams are now around .500. New York is 5-4 and Cleveland is 5-5, a night after the Cavaliers handed Philadelphia its first road loss. “It’s going to be a dogfight, a bloodbath to get into those top six,” Atkinson said. “There’s so much talent up and down.” Josh Hart missed his second straight game for the Knicks with an ankle injury that Brown called “nothing major.”

The Cavaliers start three straight road games at Charlotte on Monday at 7 p.m. ET, which is 2 a.m. Tuesday Cairo time. The Knicks host Milwaukee on Tuesday. It was the first of four Knicks-Cavaliers meetings before Christmas.