Cavaliers Earn Major Boost In Eastern Conference Standings

If Wednesday night is a sign of things to come, April is going to be a good month for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The wine and gold opened up the final month of the regular season with a thrilling 124-105 win over the New York Knicks. It's a matchup that always comes with a little extra juice, especially ever since the Knicks disposed of the Cavaliers in five games during the first round of the playoffs two years ago.

"Revenge" wasn't really at the forefront of anyone's mind for this one, though. This year's Cavaliers squad is focused on something much more important: locking up the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Wednesday's victory helped drop the team's magic number to do so to just three.

Cleveland certainly had to work for it. The Knicks came out firing in the early going, quickly finding their rhythm from beyond the arc, where they shot a blistering 75% from three in the first quarter.

That, combined with an uncharacteristically sloppy start from the Cavs allowed their foes from The Big Apple to build a six-point lead after one.

The three-ball continued to lift the Knicks well into the second quarter, on top of their 26 points in the paint in the first half. For a while Cleveland just couldn't get out of their own way, falling behind by a game-high 15 points with four minutes to go before the half.

Suddenly something clicked. The defense tightened up. And the Cavs finished the half on a 7-2 run, to cut the lead to single digits.

That little run turned into a big one in the third quarter as a 9-2 stretch cut the Knicks lead down to just two a little over a minute and a half into the third. About three minutes later, Donovan Mitchell knocked down an emphatic, straight-away three-pointer to give his team its first lead since the opening minutes of the game, 69-68.

The Cavaliers simply never looked back, smacking the Knicks with a Cavalanche by outscoring them 55-37 the rest of the way.

Cleveland's good news didn't stop there, though. Not long after its showdown with New York went final, news of a Boston Celtics loss to the Miami Heat became official, reducing that magic number to clinch home court throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs once again.

With six games to play, the Cavs need some combination of 2 wins, two more Celtics losses, or one of each to officially claim their throne atop the Eastern Conference. For all intents and purposes, the race for the top spot is over, though.

Wednesday night felt like a playoff atmosphere in Rocket Arena. It's the fist of many games that will feel that way for the Cavaliers in the weeks and months ahead.

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