CLEVELAND — By the end, the Knicks did more than simply beat the Cavaliers: they’d wrecked them. They’d ruined them. By the end, worn out by one more beating — this one a wire-to-wire 121-108 splattering — the Cavaliers just stopped playing offense. They stopped playing defense.
They stopped playing basketball.
Say it like it is: The Knicks made the Cavaliers quit. They stole their will. They all but stole their souls. And of course, by the end, there was an arena 463 miles west of Madison Square Garden that nevertheless sounded like another Garden satellite office. At the start of the night, the Cavaliers had actually distributed rules and guidelines for how to root for the home team.
(Think about that for a second. No. Really. THINK about that.)
