Knicks dismantled by Cavaliers as horrendous shooting in third allows game to unravel

CLEVELAND — Brick by brick, the Knicks were dismantled by the Cavs.

An atrocious shooting night ended Tuesday with a 109-94 loss for the Knicks, who folded easily to their fellow Finals contender and left Rocket Arena tied for third in the East.

The third quarter was the breaking point. Or better yet, the bricking point. It was horrendous.

The Knicks managed just 11 points in those 12 nasty minutes, shooting a combined (shield your eyes, children) 3-for-24 overall, 1-for-12 from beyond the arc and 4-for-8 from the foul line.

It was their lowest-scoring quarter of the season and looked the part.

“No matter what we did, we either turned the ball over or we had a tough shot,” coach Mike Brown said after arriving late to his postgame news conference. “So we made some play calls tonight. But we didn’t generate anything from the calls that we made.”

So they entered the fourth quarter down 18 and couldn’t recover, not against a stout Cavaliers defense and without the help of competent shooting. Brown finally waved the white flag with 2:42 remaining, emptying his bench and sending the starters on a walk of shame.

Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Jalen Brunson, Landry Shamet and OG Anunoby combined to miss 42 of their 61 attempts. Bridges was aggressively misfiring at 6-for-17 on the evening. Brunson was worse at 6-for-19.

Karl-Anthony Towns was perfect but only took five shots, with four of those in the first quarter. It furthered KAT’s head-scratching trend of alternating strong performances with disappearing acts. Anunoby (five points, 2-for-9 from the field) has struggled since returning from a toe injury.

Brown’s attempt to give an opportunity to Jeremy Sochan was also a miscalculation, with the newcomer appearing utterly lost in his two first-half minutes. Mohamed Diawara got the call in the second half and also tossed up bricks.

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“We just didn’t play well enough,” Hart said. “We didn’t execute offensively.”

It was an all-around dud. The Cavs responded with a balanced but not especially potent attack. They shot just 42.5 percent as a team, but it didn’t matter against the Brickerbockers. Mitchell Robinson, who has owned the Cavs frontcourt since the 2023 playoffs, was the lone positive for the Knicks with 15 rebounds, including eight offensive.

The Knicks (36-22) are now even with the Cavs (36-22) and two games behind the No. 2 Celtics, who beat the Suns on Tuesday night.

But the Cavs are surging. They revamped at the trade deadline, acquiring James Harden for the talented but habitually unavailable Darius Garland. They also brought in bench pieces Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis.

It’s all been positive for Cleveland, which has won 13 of 15 after Tuesday’s blowout. Kenny Atkinson just missed out on guiding Harden in Brooklyn before he was unceremoniously dumped by GM Sean Marks and owner Joe Tsai. Now he’s excited for the chance in Cleveland.

“His composure, calmness,” Atkinson said of Harden, who scored 20 points Tuesday. “He’s just got a command of the game. That settles everybody down. It’s huge. He knows where the ball’s got to go. He knows the end-of-game stuff. Sharp, sharp player.”

The Knicks understood the difficulties of defending Harden and Donovan Mitchell, perhaps the best offensive backcourt in the NBA.

But defending wasn’t the problem Tuesday for the Knicks. It was the bricklaying.

“Ugly game,” Brown said.