Cleveland Cavaliers at New York Knicks
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
7:00 PM ET, Madison Square Garden
The Knicks are 4.5-point favorites over the Cavaliers with a total of 221.5 at most books, and my play is Knicks -4.5.
Monday night in Charlotte, Cleveland trailed by as many as 33 to a Hornets team that had dropped six straight. Charlotte grabbed 17 offensive rebounds and buried 23 threes, and Donovan Mitchell and James Harden both sat the fourth quarter after 11-point nights. That’s the team walking into the Garden tonight at 5-6, losers of two straight and 1-4 on the road.
Cleveland keeps losing the same fight
The Cavs’ problem isn’t talent. It’s the boards. Cleveland is a middle-of-the-pack defensive rebounding team, and New York is exactly the wrong opponent for that. The Knicks rank third in the league at grabbing their own misses and second at cleaning up everyone else’s, per Basketball Reference, and Karl-Anthony Towns is pulling down 13.6 boards a night.
We already watched this movie on Saturday. Both teams shot 42.7% from the field in Cleveland, and the Knicks still won 109-97 because they took 96 shots to the Cavs’ 82. Brunson scored 31, Towns added 29, and Mitchell’s 37 didn’t matter. Extra possessions are the cheapest points in basketball, and the Knicks collect them like rent.
Jarrett Allen is back from his knee contusion, which should help Cleveland and helped nobody in Charlotte. He had 12 and seven while the Hornets lived on second chances anyway.
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New York’s defense is doing the heavy lifting
The Knicks have won four straight, and the scores tell you how: 90 allowed to Brooklyn, 105 to Chicago, 97 to Cleveland, 85 to Milwaukee last night. They’re giving up 102.3 points per game and carry a net rating near +6 per 100 possessions, while Cleveland sits closer to +1.6 despite one of the better shooting offenses around. One team is winning games. The other is winning box-score lines.
Josh Hart is out again, ankle listed, after sitting the Bucks game with an illness. Mike Brown said before that game, “if he was not sick, he would play tonight.” Landry Shamet has started in his place and the Knicks haven’t lost since.
The case against laying it
This is the second night of a back-to-back for New York, and Cleveland had Tuesday off. Hart himself admitted last week, “We all feel the fatigue.” If the Knicks’ legs go and the Cavs’ shooters, who post a strong 54.9% effective field goal rate, get hot early, 4.5 points disappear fast. Harden and Mitchell are also too good to stay quiet twice in a row.
But a 32-point laugher over Milwaukee is about as gentle as a back-to-back opener gets, and Cleveland hasn’t shown it can finish a defensive possession. I’ll trust the team that wins the glass.
Projected score: Knicks 114, Cavaliers 106
The Pick: Knicks -4.5 (-106)
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