Cleveland Cavaliers sharpshooter Max Strus offered a candid assessment of the Cavs’ loss to the New York Knicks on Tuesday night.
“We got our a– beat tonight,” Strus told Cleveland.com after the loss on Tuesday.
Strus finished with just six points on 2-of-9 shooting from the field in the loss. He also added three rebounds and three assists.
The Cavs were down two key players in the loss, as guard Darius Garland and center Jarrett Allen both missed the game due to injuries. However, Strus didn’t make any excuses for the team’s performance.
“You can make all the excuses you want,” Strus told Cleveland.com. “At the end of the day, they played harder than us, they out-toughed us, they beat the s— out of us. They came in and did the same thing that they did last year. Hopefully that lights a flare in our locker room and hopefully we respond tomorrow. We have to be better.”
The Cavs and Knicks play the second game of a back-to-back on Wednesday night. The two teams will face off at Madison Square Garden after New York won on the road at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on Tuesday.
There has been a bit of a rivalry brewing between the Knicks and Cavs dating back to before the 2022-23 season. New York had been rumored to be interested in acquiring star guard Donovan Mitchell from the Utah Jazz prior to that season, but the Cavs swooped in and made a deal to bring him to Cleveland.
With rumors that the Knicks are still interested in Mitchell – and reports that Mitchell will eventually leave Cleveland, the two teams are going to be linked for quite some time.
In his first season with the Cavs, Mitchell showed just how valuable he can be, helping the team make the playoffs for the first time since LeBron James left the franchise for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Mitchell averaged a career-high 28.3 points per game, earning All-NBA honors for the first time in his career.
Despite the great season from Mitchell, the Cavs came up short time and time again when facing the Knicks last season. The team went just 1-3 against New York in the regular season before the teams met in the playoffs.
As the No. 4 seed in the East last season, Cleveland finished one spot ahead of the No. 5-seeded Knicks. However, New York dominated the Cavs in the playoffs, winning their series in just five games.
Since Cleveland acquired Mitchell, the Knicks are 8-2 against the Cavs (including the playoffs).
One of the ways that the Knicks controlled the series was on the offensive glass. The team had 75 offensive rebounds across five games, with Mitchell Robinson (29 offensive rebounds) and Josh Hart (12 offensive rebounds) leading the way. Cleveland only had 46 offensive boards in the series.
The rebounding battle was brought up by Cavs big man Tristan Thompson ahead of Tuesday’s matchup between the two teams. Thompson took a shot at Hart’s ability to rebound.
Tristan Thompson did not like the comparison to Josh Hart with their rebounding today:
"Me and Josh Hart similarities with offensive rebounding? You should’ve used Pat Beverly as a comparison. Me and Josh Hart rebounding-wise? No. That’s like a filet and a sirloin steak."
— Stefan Bondy (@SbondyNBA) October 30, 2023
Unfortunately for Thompson, he tallied just two boards in the loss while Hart finished with seven rebounds for the Knicks. Hart seemed to take a shot back at Thompson and the Cavs after the win.
Josh Hart on the Cavs using the playoff loss to the #Knicks as motivation: “You always see it, man. We don’t really care. That’s for them, man. If they wanna have that chip on their shoulder, that’s good for them.
“We don’t really care. We’re just sirloin steaks.”
— Kristian Winfield (@Krisplashed) November 1, 2023
There’s certainly some bad blood between these two teams, and Cavs forward Isaac Okoro even revealed that he rooted for the Miami Heat to knock the Knicks out of the playoffs last season.
The easiest way for the Cavs to turn things around in the rivalry would be to win Wednesday night’s game. Hopefully, Strus and the Cavs will learn from the poor showing on Tuesday and come out more focused against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Wednesday’s showdown is scheduled to tip off at 7:30 p.m. EST.
