New York (AFP) – Defiant Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson insisted the Cavaliers can bounce back after an epic fourth-quarter collapse against the New York Knicks in game one of the NBA Eastern Conference finals. “We’ve been through it in the playoffs,” Atkinson told reporters at the Cavaliers’ Wednesday morning training session in New York.
Atkinson’s Cavs came through two gut-wrenching seven-game series to book a showdown with the Knicks for a place in the NBA Finals. The coach said “devastating” moments like the Cavs’ failure to close out the Detroit Pistons in game six of the second round were part and parcel of post-season basketball. “Four or five miserable games we’ve had in the playoffs,” he said. “So it’s like, OK, come on, get back on the horse.”
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The Cavaliers led the Knicks by 22 points with less than eight minutes left in regulation on Tuesday, only for New York to roar back and win in overtime in the second-biggest fourth-quarter comeback in NBA playoff history. The Knicks exploited the suspect defense of veteran James Harden, a three-time scoring champion and the 2018 NBA Most Valuable Player.
But Atkinson said it was a collective defensive failure down the stretch. “One thing about James, I’ll just defend him, he’s a good isolation defender,” Atkinson said of the 36-year-old. “He always has been. He’s super smart. He’s got great hands. I was kind of a little more upset with our backline defense. OK, he had two or three really tough shots on him (but) this is team defense. At this level, it’s team defense. I know everybody’s putting it on James, but I’d say a lot of it’s on the team, our team defense.”
Atkinson himself came in for plenty of criticism — for failing to use his last two timeouts of regulation in a bid to break up the Knicks’ rhythm and for failing to find the right defensive adjustments. Atkinson said the adjustments Cleveland tried just didn’t work. “You know the coach, especially when you lose, you’re wrong,” he said.
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