Ranking Who's Most to Blame for Cavs' Epic Collapse Against Knicks

The New York Knicks are up 1-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals.

That's a statement that might have seemed borderline ludicrous less than an hour before the final buzzer sounded on their 115-104 overtime victory.

With just under 8:00 left in the fourth quarter, New York was down 22. It was 93-71. James Harden had just hit a free throw. The Cleveland Cavaliers' "win probability" at that moment was 99.9 percent. Yes, 99.9. And it stayed there for nearly a full minute.

But the Knicks outscored the Cavs, 30-8, over the rest of the game. Then they stomped their opponent in overtime, 14-3.

And now it's time to examine how that kind of collapse was possible. More specifically, it's time to decide who's most to blame.

5. Landry Shamet

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That's right. We're starting with a Knick in a slideshow about who's to blame for a Cavaliers loss.

And yes, we're going with Landry Shamet, who had the kind of role player performance that can swing an entire postseason.

Entering Game 1, Shamet was averaging 4.1 points in the playoffs. He played just three minutes in the first half of Tuesday's contest.

And then, he played the last nine minutes of the fourth quarter and all of overtime. He went 3-of-3 from three, and each one felt monumental. By the end of the game, he was a team-high plus-25.

It was one of the most vivid examples we've seen during the playoffs of how important it is to simply stay ready. It was an example of how important competitiveness and a single high-end skill can be from a role player.

4. Kenny Atkinson

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Once the ball goes up, especially in the NBA, it's at least as much on the players as it is on the coaching staff to execute and get the job done.

But there are certainly adjustments and decisions a coach can make to influence the outcome of a game. And Kenny Atkinson clearly failed to make them on Tuesday.

Perhaps most egregious was his insistence on not calling a timeout. During the 30-8 collapse, he only used one. And when asked about it afterward, he simply said he likes to "hold" them.

But one of their primary functions, at all levels of basketball, is to halt momentum. Simply stopping the flow of the game can interrupt whatever zone a hot opponent is in. It can give your own players a chance to breathe and refocus. It can give a coach the ability to talk through why a run is happening and how to stop it.

Yes, it's nice to have multiple timeouts available down the stretch of a close game. But in hindsight, Atkinson obviously should've called one during that avalanche.

Beyond that, he allowed the offense to become a little too one-note. Donovan Mitchell and James Harden combined to shoot 1-of-10 over those last 13 minutes (more on that later), while Max Strus and Sam Merrill were 1-of-2.

Atkinson needed to do something to encourage a little more ball and player movement and redirect some of those attempts to his dedicated catch-and-shoot threats.

Instead, he allowed Harden and Mitchell to just try to figure out the implosion themselves, and they failed in pretty spectacular fashion.

3. James Harden

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There is a pretty stunning number that has been haunting James Harden throughout this playoff run. And it seems to grow just about every week.

On Tuesday, he had six turnovers and five made field goals. It was the fifth time this postseason he's turned the ball over more times than he's put it in the basket in a game.

And for his career, he's now up to 48 such games. He's done it in over 25 percent of his total playoff games.

On this night, specifically, Cleveland's collapse isn't directly attributable to that statistical oddity. Over those fateful final 13 minutes, he only had one turnover, but he also only made one shot. And he also missed two free throws.

With Mitchell on the roster, Harden doesn't really shoulder the same kind of responsibility he did for other teams earlier in his career. But he's still functionally the point guard. And especially if his coach isn't going to call timeouts to talk through a crash, Harden has to find a way to more effectively pilot the team.

He didn't. Cleveland closed the game going 4-of-18 from the field. And Harden and Mitchell's defense was largely to blame for Mikal Bridges, Shamet and Jalen Brunson going 13-of-15 in the same stretch.

2. Donovan Mitchell

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But again, Harden isn't the man anymore. And while he, Evan Mobley (1-of-5 down the stretch) and Jarrett Allen (1-of-1, but he missed two free throws and only grabbed one rebound) didn't cover themselves in glory, this is Mitchell's team.

And he was just completely overwhelmed and overshadowed by the Knicks, and more specifically, the star guard they got instead of him.

For much of Mitchell's last couple seasons with the Utah Jazz, his desire to play for the Knicks was one of the worst kept secrets in the league. But Utah never granted his wish with a trade there. The Knicks signed Brunson. And on Tuesday, it looked abundantly clear that they made the right choice in building around him.

Mitchell disappeared (literally, on defense, a few times) in those last 13 minutes. He was 0-of-5 from the field, had no rebounds, made no assists, didn't get a single steal or block and turned the ball over once. He played that entire dreadful stretch and was minus-32 in it.

With his team hemorrhaging a 22-point lead, Mitchell looked incapable or unwilling (on both ends) to even slow the momentum.

Superstar players are supposed to be able to sense those moments and either lean into them or hit back. Mitchell didn't, and the Cavs surrendered a massive opportunity because of it.

1. Jalen Brunson

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Ultimately, though, the result of Game 1 is on the shoulders of one of the league's most dynamic crunch-time performers.

Cleveland's defense obviously deserves some blame, but Brunson is the kind of superstar who seizes moments. On Tuesday, he got a big one.

During the 13-minute run that turned the game and possibly the series, Brunson scored 17 points, was 8-of-10 from the field, had four assists and grabbed three rebounds.

That's twice as many buckets and twice as many assists as the Cavs had during the same stretch. He even outrebounded them, 3-2!

This is a classic "did the one team lose the game or did the other one win it" situation, and there's certainly a good argument for the former. But Brunson deserves the lion's share of the credit for what happened Tuesday.

Down 22 with under 8:00 to play, plenty of leaders would've taken their foot off the gas and hoped to fight another day. Brunson dug his heels in and hit back for 13 straight minutes.

And his team is now three wins away from the NBA Finals.