Pressure Cooker: 3 Cavaliers that need to do well in Knicks series

The Cleveland Cavaliers are coming off of a very successful regular season where they finished with a 51-31 record, earning them the four seed going into the playoffs. They now get a matchup against the New York Knicks, who come in with a 48-34 record and the five seed. On records and seedings alone, you’d think that the Cavs would be feeling good about themselves. However, there are things in this pending series that have fans of the Wine and Gold feeling pretty uncomfortable. One of those factors is that the Knicks have matched up well against the Cavs, having won three of four games in the regular season.

The playoffs are obviously played at a different level, where every possession of the ball is so important. Because of this there is building pressure on several Cleveland team members as we wait for this series to commence on Saturday.

Cleveland got to this point, by playing well, and having their best players from Donovan Mitchell to Evan Mobley do things this season that made huge differences from just a year ago when the team stumbled toward the finish line and couldn’t eek into the playoffs. With those players stepping up this year, in which it’s been Mitchell’s first with the team, there is a lot to be excited about as we look at this series with New York.

This is the playoffs, though, and that pressure will be there, even if players and coaches try and downplay this factor. Let’s go in and discuss a bit more about this pressure and those Cavaliers that will feel the most pressure in this series, starting in descending order from No. 3.