The New York Knicks are coming to Cleveland after securing nine consecutive playoff victories and holding a 2-0 lead in the series of the Eastern Conference Finals.
For the Cavaliers, Game 3 at Rocket Arena is a critical one as they have to win, and it seems that the atmosphere in the arena is already unfavorable to them even before the tip-off.
In fact, Cleveland had attempted in earnest to prevent this scenario from unfolding. They limited the sales of primary market tickets to those whose billing addresses were in specified parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even a small portion of western New York, in an effort to exclude New York City fans. But this plan did not succeed.
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GettyThe Cavaliers May Not Have a Home-Court Advantage Anymore
Ticket data from TickPick shows that 41.7% of all Game 3 purchases are coming from New York and New Jersey. That is 31.2% from NY and 10.5% from NJ.
Nearly half the building is rooting for the visiting team, and knowing New York money, those fans are not sitting in the upper rows either.
41.7% of purchases for Game 3 of Knicks @ Cavs are coming from New York and New Jersey.
31.2% from NY 10.5% from NJ
(Via @TickPick )
This story is the same one that Philadelphia tried. The Sixers attempted to limit tickets, ended up giving away 500 seats to local organizations, and even Amtrak raised train fares to discourage New York travelers. However, Knicks supporters dominated both Game 3 and Game 4, and New York swept the series.
During the ongoing playoffs, Cleveland’s record at home was 6-1. This figure had a significant meaning when the arena was filled with Cavs fans. When almost half of the crowd is cheering against them tonight, their home-court advantage will be drastically diminished.
New York Knicks and Cavaliers Game 3 Injury Report
GettyKnicks Nation Is Flooding Cleveland Ahead of Massive Game 3
Crowd situation is just a single aspect of the good news for New York. In addition, the Knicks come into the game 3 with a totally clean injury report; so do the Cavaliers too. As such, every key player on both sides should be available for respective teams tonight.
Mike Brown runs a tight rotation and relies quite a bit on Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart and OG Anunoby for big minutes. All four being in perfect health for a road closeout game is exactly the kind of thing at this stage of the playoffs can make a difference.
There is still something left in Cleveland and they have already demonstrated this. They rallied from down 0-2 against the Detroit Pistons earlier in these playoffs and eventually won that series.
However, being resilient is only the half of it whereas the performance needs to contribute as well, and in Game 2 they connected only 39% of their shots from the field and 26% from three. Evan Mobley scored 14 points in the first half and then was totally non-existent after the break. That has to be different when they are playing at home.
The Cavaliers tried everything to protect their building and still ended up with close to half the seats going to the other side. The Knicks go into tonight healthy, hot, and with what might genuinely feel like a home crowd. Cleveland has a lot to fix, and not a lot of room left to fix it.
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