Game 3 Observations: The Butterfly Effect and An Empty Tank

CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Cavaliers have no one to blame but themselves.

After Saturday night’s 121-108 loss to the New York Knicks to put the Cavaliers behind three games to none in this best-of-seven series, Donovan Mitchell sat at the podium and expressed that sentiment.

“We did it to ourselves,” Mitchell said when asked how fatigue built up from needing seven games to dispatch the Toronto Raptors and Detroit Pistons in the first two rounds of the playoffs. “We did it to ourselves. So we can't be mad now.”

He’s exactly right.

The Knicks have been the better team in this series. They’ve thoroughly outplayed the Cavs in seven of the last nine quarters — plus an overtime period — that these teams have played. New York has done nearly everything better than Cleveland. The Knicks are a great team with a legitimate chance to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy next month. They deserve all the credit for handling the Cavaliers in the fashion that they have.

But the Cavs have made it easy for them, too.

After leading Game 1 by 22 points in the fourth quarter, the Cavs collapsed. By the time overtime arrived, Cleveland never recovered and still hasn’t. They physically have run out of gas, and may have mentally, too. That didn’t happen in this series.

That happened when the Cavs led the Toronto Raptors by eight points with 4:31 seconds left in regulation of Game 4 of that first round series. That eight points may as well have been 20 given the offensive atrocity that game was. The Cavs couldn’t close the game out, losing by four points in regulation. That loss extended that series to at least six games.

When Game 6 arrived, the Cavs used a furious comeback to force overtime. Evan Mobley tied the game with less than 15 seconds remaining on a basket through the chest of Toronto’s Collin Murray-Boyles. It was a big time moment for Mobley, who has been relatively good all postseason. Moments later Dennis Schroder would throw a grenade of a pass to Mobley while trying to dribble out the clock with a lead in overtime, only for Murray-Boyles to knock the ball out of bounds — off of Mobley — and give the Raptors possession. Toronto’s RJ Barrett hit a game-winning shot that bounced off the heel of the rim all the way above the shot clock before gently falling through the cylinder.