The bigger factor is the schedule. Cleveland beat Philadelphia on Friday, so Saturday is the second night of a back-to-back, and the Knicks will have had a couple of days off since Wednesday's rout at the Garden. The Cavs come into it thin, too. Jarrett Allen missed the Sixers game with a bruised right knee from a collision with Jared McCain at Oklahoma City. Jaylon Tyson has been out with an ankle injury since late October, and Merrill left Friday's win with a right elbow injury and sat the second half. Going into Saturday all 3 are listed day-to-day, and Nae'Qwan Tomlin is out with a back injury. New York isn't fully healthy either: Josh Hart is out with right ankle soreness, and he's the only Knick on the report.
The board has New York as a road favorite, which says a lot about how the market views a Cleveland team playing at home. That makes sense given the legs and the injury list. It also leaves Cleveland as an underdog right after a 24-point win over a team that was favored against it.
For the Knicks, the important thing is how Brunson is being used. He scored 33 on 10-of-17 against Chicago and played only 28 minutes because the game was over by halftime. Brown has said openly that he doesn't want to overload Brunson in November because it'll cost them in the playoffs. Karl-Anthony Towns added 17 and 12 for his 8th straight double-double, OG Anunoby had 18 and locked up the Bulls' best young scorer, and the bench put up 53. That bench will have to carry more without Hart, who does the dirty work on the glass and is the guy Brown leans on for energy minutes. When the second unit scores like it did Wednesday, Brunson gets to sit.
Cleveland's answer is the Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley duo that just beat Philly. Mitchell had 23, 8 and 7, Mobley scored 22 on 8-of-13, and the Cavs won the boards 65-51 with Allen in street clothes. Doing that again against Towns on no rest is a lot harder than doing it against a Sixers team that shot 10-of-40 from 3. Allen's status is still the main thing to watch, and moving from out to day-to-day is a step in the right direction. He called himself "alright" after the OKC game, and the diagnosis was a contusion, nothing structural. If he's cleared, Cleveland gets its size back right when it needs it, and with Hart out, New York is a little lighter on the boards than usual.
