Cleveland Cavaliers @ New York Knicks
Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at 8:00 PM ET
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY | Game ID: 42500301
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 OT1 Final
NYK 23 23 23 32 14 115CLE 16 32 35 18 3 104
ESPN UpdateESPN Update
Jalen Brunson leads Knicks back from 22 down in the 4th for 115-104 win over Cavs in OT in Game 1
NEW YORK -- — Jalen Brunson sparked one of the NBA's greatest postseason comebacks, a rally from a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter, and finished with 38 points as New York beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 115-104 in overtime on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.
After a record-setting run through the first two rounds, the Knicks were going nowhere for 40 minutes against the Cavs, trailing 93-71 with 7:52 to play. But Brunson relentlessly attacked James Harden to spark an 18-1 run that made it a ballgame, and he tied it at 101-all on a basket with 19 seconds remaining in regulation.
Before that, Brunson said the message for the Knicks was just to finish strong so they would have momentum for Game 2, even if they lost the opener.
“Just keep fighting,” he said. “Keep chipping away. We’re not going to get it back in one possession.”
The Knicks then opened overtime with a 9-0 run as a delirious crowd in Madison Square Garden danced and screamed in the aisles. The Knicks moved within three wins of their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999.
Mikal Bridges added 18 points and three Knicks scored 13, including OG Anunoby , who came on late after struggling most of the way in his return after missing two games with a strained right hamstring.
Donovan Mitchell scored 29 points for the Cavaliers, who seemed well on their way to a third straight road win before their late collapse. The Knicks outscored them 44-11 after their 93-71 lead.
“We played great basketball tonight for three quarters. Unfortunately, the fourth quarter — they dominated us in the fourth quarter,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said.
The Knicks won their eighth straight game and will host Game 2 on Thursday.
The Knicks had outscored Atlanta and Philadelphia by a combined 194 points, the largest margin ever through a team’s first 10 postseason games. But after not playing since May 10, when they finished their second-round sweep of the 76ers, the Knicks misfired most of the night, looking like the rust hurt more than the rest helped.
They were 4 for 23 on 3-pointers through three quarters and then had a horrible start to the fourth. But a year after coughing up a 14-point lead in the final minutes of regulation and losing to Indiana in OT in Game 1 of the conference finals on their home court, the Knicks found their offense just in time.
“But it was our defense that has always been special in these playoffs and that has carried us in this playoffs, that showed up in the fourth quarter and in overtime,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “It allowed us to be sitting here with a win against a really great team.”
The only bigger fourth-quarter playoff comeback in the last 30 years was when the Clippers rallied from 24 down to beat Memphis in Game 1 in 2012.
“That can’t happen. But it did," Mitchell said. "We play in two days. We can’t sit here and let it kill our momentum, kill what we’ve been doing. It’s not a good loss.”
The Knicks came from 20 points behind three times last year in the postseason. Those were their largest comebacks on record since 1969-70, when they won their first of two NBA titles.
Evan Mobley had 15 points and 14 rebounds for the Cavs. Harden also scored 15 points, but was just 1 for 8 on 3-pointers and had more turnovers (six) than field goals (five).
Who is who
the initials in the Players column
NYKJA J. Alvarado
JB J. Brunson
JC J. Clarkson
JH J. Hart
KT K. Towns
LS L. Shamet
MB M. Bridges
MM M. McBride
MR M. Robinson
OA O. Anunoby
CLEDM D. Mitchell
DS D. Schröder
DW D. Wade
EM E. Mobley
JA J. Allen
JH J. Harden
KE K. Ellis
MS M. Strus
SM S. Merrill
SC Schroder
NYK/CLE the team itself, not a player
-- the feed named nobody
What
What happened
the codes in the Events column
M2 / M3 made 2 / made 3
X2 / X3 missed 2 / missed 3
FT / X1 free throw made / missed
AST assist
OR / DR offensive / defensive rebound
STL steal
BLK block
TO turnover
FL foul
OF offensive foul — ends the possession
VIOL violation
JUMP jump ball
TM timeout
IR instant replay
HE heave at the buzzer, filed to the team
Where
Where a shot came from
the middle field of M3.LW.25
RM at the rim inside 4 ft
RC right corner
RW right wing
SO straight on
LW left wing
LC left corner
M3.LW.25 made 3, left wing, 25 ft
X2.RM.01 missed 2, at the rim, 1 ft
When
When it happened
the Offset column
one number per event, in the Events order:
whole seconds from the start of the
possession to that event
Events FL X3.RC.23 OR M2.RM.01
Offset 0 18 22 24
the foul opens the possession at 0s;
the putback ends it at 24s, which is
the possession's own Dur