Happy Monday Knicks fans. Despite it being the start of a new week, I have good news! We now know who the Knicks will face in the Eastern Conference Final and that they’ll be back in action Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden! If you can’t already tell from this post’s featured image, the orange and blue will take on the Cleveland Cavaliers for the right to go to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. These two met three times in the regular season, a series in which the Knick won two of the contests…though as we know the regular season has come to mean very little this postseason.

It feels like these two have been linked together for some time now. Both sought the services of Donavan Mitchell in the trade market when the Jazz put him on the block a few years back. Mitchell has a funny relationship with this city to begin with, as he’s an avid Mets fan (his dad is a team employee) who loves to tweet his way through their games. Those Mitchell tweets have led to him and Josh Hart having some playful arguments about the Yankees and the Mets during the offseason. It’s also worth pointing out that Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson is familiar with the big apple from his time as Nets head coach, a stretch in which he got them back to the postseason. But above all, this series, much like last round against Philadelphia, feels like things coming full circle for the Knicks as they face the first team they played in the playoffs in the “Brunson era.”

Both teams and their fans have come a long way since that first postseason meeting. Brunson and Mitchell were leading teams that had ostensibly become built around them into battle for the first time and there were plenty of eyes on the series. The Knicks had the jump on Cleveland from the get-go, taking game one on the road and going on take the series in five games in impressive fashion considering how little playoff experience the group had. Now since then both teams have changed coaches and plenty of personnel have been on and off both teams. Julius Randle, Isaiah Hartenstein, Darius Garland and Caris LeVert were all players that featured regularly that spring and have since moved on.

But for all that change, some constants are still in place, namely Brunson, Mitchell, Josh Hart, and Jarrett Allen while newer faces like Evan Mobley, Sam Merrill, James Harden, Mikal Bridges and Karl Anthony Towns work in concert with them. In addition to personnel changes their styles of play have turned over as well, as the Cavaliers have become a “three pointer’s galore” kind of squad with their array of outside shooters surrounding Jarret Allen who seems to work the inside all alone at times. Meanwhile the Knicks have continued to evolve and are now playing through Karl Anthony Towns, which has opened up new doors for their offense to work both inside and out.

But enough retrospect, let’s talk about how 25-26 went for these two. Both squads entered this season as favorites to win the East with the Celtics and Pacers short their stars and most of the other contenders in transition. They locked horns on opening night, a game the Knicks won and then followed up with the thrilling Christmas Day rally you see above. Cleveland won the game they hosted in the second half of the year, but they changed even more than the Knicks did over the course of the campaign. While New York refined their team and figured out the best way to execute Mike Brown’s gameplan, the Cavs had to turn over their roster pretty dramatically.

Cleveland was 30-21 on the season when they traded star guard Darius Garland to the Clippers in exchange for the often-maligned James Harden. Following the trade Harden and his new mates went 22-9 to win 52 games on the campaign and claim the fourth seed in the East. They drew the Raptors in round one, who despite popular thinking, did not roll over and die for Cleveland, taking the series to a seventh game that the Cavaliers won at home. That series win set up a round two matchup with the top seeded Pistons, who they trailed 2-0 in the series before storming back to eventually take a series lead, one they would blow setting up their second straight game seven. Seven must be their lucky number though as they won on the road in Detroit to punch their ticket to this matchup with the Knicks.

What has made Cleveland dangerous has been Harden and Mitchell leading the way as an effective tandem, in spite of Harden’s hit and miss playoff performances that have plagued his career and continued this spring. While these two do most of the heavy lifting, they get backed up on the interior by the imposing and physical big man Jarrett Allen who helped tip the scales in their favor against the Pistons. The rest of their rotation typically features a three headed three-point monster of Sam Merrill, Jordan Tyson and Max Struss, all of whom can swing momentum with a couple of well-timed trays, and veteran guard Dennis Schroeder who keeps the offense flowing when Harden and or Mitchell are off the floor. In charge of it all is the aforementioned Kenny Atkinson, who is a coach I certainly respect, and think is as good as Mike Brown…if not a bit better.

But enough about the opposition, let’s talk about the Knicks! A lot has been made of how much rest the orange and blue have gotten since their series with the Sixers drew to a close on Mother’s Day. By the time they take the floor for game one Tuesday night at the Garden, they’ll have been off for eight days, a layoff you don’t typically see in the postseason. While everyone’s been busy playing, the Knicks have been busy getting their legs rested and their wounded troops back to full health, especially OG Anunoby. Number eight went down with a hamstring injury in game two against the Sixers and didn’t return to the series, something that hurt considering he was in the midst of playing the best basketball of his career at the time. The layoff has paid off though as OG is now confirmed to be ready to go for game one Tuesday night after practicing with the team over the last few days.

The Knicks once again have the deeper team in this series and Mike Brown needs to lean into that depth as he did against the Sixers. Running his mix of options at Cleveland should help frustrate their offense, something we saw the Pistons do several times in round two. You wouldn’t think a team with as much talent as Cleveland could be so easily pushed off their game, but it almost feels like this Cavs squad needs to be in the right mood to win consistently this postseason. The high intensity perimeter defense we saw the Knicks employ to great effect in the first two rounds needs to continue if they’re going to slow down Cleveland and win this series, so I wouldn’t change a thing if I was Mike Brown. Yes, rust from the layoff could be a factor, but by the same token the Cavs have been heavily taxed, playing 14 games just to reach this point.

Over the last week it’s almost felt as if the excitement around this playoff run went by the wayside around here. The Knicks were out of action for so long and the Subway Series took centerstage for a few days, but city will now shift its attention to the World’s Most Famous Arena. The Knicks are back at the stage where their dreams died a year ago, once again with home court, having looked like they’re on a mission to right last season’s wrongs since game four in Atlanta. The belief in this group has probably never been higher and the opportunity to breakthrough to the Finals has never been greater. This series is the golden chance Brunson, Hart, Towns and their teammates have been looking for to define their place in Knicks history. They stand on the precipice of going where Willis, Clyde, Ewing, Starks, Houston, Spree, and a few others have gone, and I have no doubt they will seize the moment in front of them. This is the time, this is the moment, now they have to get the job done!

I’ll take the Knicks in five. That may sound bold, but this team has unlocked something in itself that we have been waiting on for some time. I respect the Cavs talent and their own hunger to get over the hump in the playoffs, but I just don’t think this group will be denied. Their rest, depth, and clicking stars will be too much for Cleveland to overcome in my humble opinion. I believed in this Knicks team in the preseason, in the middle of the season, and to start this postseason…they haven’t let me down yet, so why stop now? Lets Go Knicks!

On twitter you can find Mike @Mike_Sheerin, Tyler @TMon_19 and Sean @SeanMartinNFL. Subscribe to the site by hitting the follow button in the bottom right corner and entering your email address. Check out our Instagram feed @thebroadwaybreakdownsports for special gameday and promotional content. Our podcasts are available on Spotify. Visit the Rangers Ed Shop by clicking the link on our homepage. Check out our mailbag page to join the conversation here on the site and on our partners show, The Rangers Ed Podcast! We’ll be back with more soon.