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The New York Knicks didn’t need a historic comeback to take Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals from the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday.

Instead, it was a dominant victory in regulation, 109-93, as the Knicks take a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series to Cleveland this weekend.

There was no hangover for the Cavaliers to begin the game, as they owned a 27-24 lead at the end of the first quarter. But the Knicks found their way into the lead by halftime.

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It was the third quarter where New York started to pull away, getting the lead up to 18 points as the Madison Square Garden crowd went ballistic. The Knicks went on an 18-0 run at one point as well, which was reminiscent of Game 1’s fourth-quarter comeback.

However, Cleveland wasn’t letting off the gas despite the deficit. The Cavaliers cut the 18-point lead in half with around 8:30 left in the fourth quarter, as New York struggled to buy a basket.

KNICKS STORM BACK TO SHOCK CAVS IN GAME 1 AS JAMES HARDEN’S DEFENSIVE PLAY COMES UNDER SCRUTINY

But once OG Anunoby knocked down a three-pointer from the left wing, things were back to normal for the Knicks crowd.

Mikal Bridges, who had a stellar night on both ends of the floor, hit a wide-open three with 6:12 remaining in the fourth that got the lead back up to 13 for the Knicks, and they would coast from there.

Jalen Brunson, the team’s All-Star point guard, was phenomenal in the comeback on Tuesday night, dropping 38 points. But Cleveland made their game plan known right away in this matchup, putting pressure on him to the point where he’d be giving up the rock in double-teams.

As a result, the Cavaliers were fine with Josh Hart taking shots instead. While the plan seemed to work in the first half a bit, Hart found his groove in the second and set a new career high with a team-high 26 points on 10-of-21 shooting, including 5-of-11 from three-point range. He also got on the board with seven assists, four rebounds and two steals.

Meanwhile, Brunson tallied 19 points and dished out a playoff career-high 14 assists for New York. And once again, Karl-Anthony Towns recorded a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds, playing efficiently for Mike Brown’s Knicks.

With the lead back up to 18 for the Knicks, all starters were pulled with under two minutes to play, as the crowd gave their squad a standing ovation for a job well done.

The Knicks shot 52% from the field and only saw 14 foul shots all game long, but they held the Cavaliers to just 39% shooting as a team. Cleveland also failed to capitalize on key free throws late in the game, as they were in the bonus with over nine minutes to play. As a team, they shot just 69% (22-of-32) from the charity stripe.

Evan Mobley also had 14 points in the first half, but he curiously didn’t take a single shot in the second half for Cleveland. Donovan Mitchell matched Hart’s 26 points, though he shot 8-of-18. James Harden also went 6-of-15 for 18 points.

With the win, the Knicks have now won nine straight playoff games.

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What a week for SEC coaches.

First, new LSU head coach Lane Kiffin went off about the supposed difficulty of the SEC’s schedules, then bragged about his easy non-conference schedules giving him 20 free wins over five years. Incredibly, Kiffin then said that the SEC plays tougher games late in the season, when he gave Ole Miss a free bye week in November by playing The Citadel.

Then Steve Sarkisian, who said undefeated teams were a thing of the past just a few months before the Indiana Hoosiers went 16-0, took his turn at SEC superiority.

According to Anwar Richardson, the Texas Longhorns head coach was speaking at The Touchdown Club of Houston this week and took the opportunity to seemingly criticize his in-state rival Texas Texas Red Raiders. “There’s a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes,” he said, “We could go undefeated, and they’ll probably make the College Football Playoff this year.”

ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!

Wonder who that could be, other than Texas Tech!

Someone else found it exceedingly obvious who Sarkisian was referring to, and took the opportunity to fire right back at the Longhorn coach and his athletic director. In a post on X, billionaire Texas Tech donor Cody Campbell went right to the point.

“Schedule us then!” Campbell replied to a post about Sark’s comments. “We’ve been talking about it for years and we are more than willing!!”

TOP TEXAS TECH FOOTBALL DONOR SAYS NOBODY HAS ‘AUTHORITY’ TO ‘ENFORCE ANY RULES’ IN COLLEGE SPORTS RIGHT NOW

Seems a bit unlikely, especially considering Sark’s comments about scheduling after losing to Ohio State in 2025 and missing out on the playoff. When the Longhorns, at 9-3, didn’t get into the tournament field, he explained that all future scheduling non-conference decisions are now under review.

“Yeah, you know, I think there’s a couple things, there’s layers to this. Bear with my answer,” he explained to the media at the time. “First of all, we’re gonna honor Ohio State and Michigan. You know, that we went there, we went to Ann Arbor, we went to Columbus, and we’re gonna honor those return trips. So for the next two years, we know what our non-conference schedule is gonna look like, and that’s the right thing to do. We made the commitment to play them. Now we’ll honor that commitment for them to come play us here. I think anything beyond that is up for discussion.

“We need to take a good hard look at what our non-conference schedule looks like beyond the next two years.”

To be fair to Sark, no one would seriously argue that Texas Tech has a tougher schedule than Texas. Or even remotely close to Texas. Particularly in 2026. In fact, one ranking system has the Longhorns with the hardest schedule in the country. Obviously, that matters, and it puts him and Texas at a severe disadvantage.

The Texas Tech schedule is weak to say the least:

That said, a lowly Big 12 team, Arizona State, arguably outplayed Texas in the College Football Playoff just a few years ago. Texas Tech is clearly trying to schedule tougher teams, and finding it hard to do. Scheduling is a two-way street, after all, and many other big programs likely don’t want to risk the non-conference loss.

And the Longhorns played in the Big 12, until very recently. As one user on X noted, they went 60-61 in conference play from 2010-2022. They’re a better program now than they were then, but the “we would go undefeated in every other conference” act is getting very tiresome. Particularly when the SEC has struggled so much against other conferences in recent years. Specifically, given how Texas actually played last year.

They lost to 4-8 Florida, one of the worst Power 4 teams in the country. They beat Kentucky, another underwhelming SEC opponent, 16-13 in overtime. They needed a miraculous fourth-quarter comeback to get to overtime with woeful Mississippi State. They scored 27 points against UTEP in a 27-10 win.

By the end of the 2025 season, advanced metric system SP+ had Texas with the 13th toughest strength of schedule, and 16th best strength of record. Texas Tech had the 45th toughest schedule and third-best strength of record, because they didn’t just win games, they won them handily. Like beating a very good Utah team 34-10 on the road. And handling a top-15 caliber BYU team by a combined score of 63-14.

Regardless, Texas likely has the most expensive roster in college football. They’re arguably the richest individual program in the sport. Nobody’s going to feel sorry for them. And with how hard their schedule is, they don’t need to go anywhere near undefeated to reach the playoff anyway.