Cavaliers 113, Knicks 106: Scenes from a spectacular almost-win

The New York Knicks lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers Wednesday night, 113-106. Was it a productive loss? Absolutely. The Knicks are now 0.5 games behind Cleveland for fourth place in the tank rankings. Was it painful to watch? Ehh...not really. In fact, some tremendously inspirational moments were provided late, particularly from rookie Kevin Knox, who came up huge late with a blocked shot...

...a three-ball...

...and a breakaway dunk to give the Knicks their first lead since the first quarter.

Unfortunately, that ended the good portion of the evening. There were some coaching shenanigans, as David Fizdale subbed out Frank Ntilikina for offense, on several possessions, despite a second-straight sterling second-half performance from the Frenchman (14 points). Emmanuel Mudiay got the ball late, but missed a butt-ugly shot while trying to draw a foul, then threw the ball away on an inbounds pass when none of his teammates managed to break open.

All in all, it was vintage tanking from the ‘Bockers, though it would have been nice to secure the win following Knox’s spectacular late-game performance. Ah well...the kid had better get used to it.