{"id":13151,"date":"2022-01-25T04:20:31","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T04:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/2022\/01\/25\/julius-randles-erratic-night-dooms-knicks-in-loss-to-cavaliers\/"},"modified":"2022-01-25T04:20:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T04:20:32","slug":"julius-randles-erratic-night-dooms-knicks-in-loss-to-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/julius-randles-erratic-night-dooms-knicks-in-loss-to-cavaliers\/","title":{"rendered":"Julius Randle&#8217;s erratic night dooms Knicks in loss to Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>CLEVELAND \u2014 On the bright side, the Knicks took the resurgent Cavaliers down to the wire.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the dim side, it was another wildly erratic night for Julius Randle, who was outplayed by Cavaliers veteran Kevin Love and rookie Evan Mobley.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In failing a big test in Northeast Ohio against the resurgent Cavaliers, the Knicks fell apart in the third quarter, rallied big in the fourth behind RJ Barrett but dropped a 95-93 decision Monday at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Barrett, after a slow start, came on in the fourth quarter but missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer with four seconds left.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t think we got what we wanted,\u2019\u2019 Tom Thibodeau said of Barrett\u2019s miss. \u201cWe wanted to attack in the open floor. He had been going downhill pretty good. I thought it would have been a good opportunity for him. We might have settled for that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Barrett finished with 24 points after a big fourth quarter but couldn\u2019t close out the deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Randle struggled on both ends. He had one last chance to become a hero, taking an inbounds pass with 1.3 seconds left from Alec Burks, but fired a contested airball from 40 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption>Julius Randle had another erratic night against the Cavaliers. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">USA TODAY Sports<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Randle finished with 18 points and four turnovers, going 6 of 17 from the field, and walked off angrily. Love wound up with 20 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Cleveland\u2019s All-Star-in-the-making, point guard Darius Garland, hit the big shot, a step-back 3 in the final minute after faking out Barrett. Garland scored 13 points with 12 assists.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Knicks were up 59-55 early in the third when the Cavaliers tore them up with a 21-3 run with Love punishing them with three 3-pointers, left wide open by a seemingly tired Randle. The Cavs led 76-62.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/BASKETBALL-NBA-CLE-NYK_-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"RJ Barrett\" class=\"wp-image-20954335\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/BASKETBALL-NBA-CLE-NYK_-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=2048 2048w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/BASKETBALL-NBA-CLE-NYK_-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1536 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/BASKETBALL-NBA-CLE-NYK_-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/BASKETBALL-NBA-CLE-NYK_-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>RJ Barrett helped spark the Knicks\u2019 late rally. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">USA TODAY Sports<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Knicks played the Cavaliers even for the first half but ran out of steam in the second night of a back-to-back set to drop to 23-25 and see their one-game winning streak snapped.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/1237962981-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=683\" alt=\"Kevin Love\" class=\"wp-image-20954327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/1237962981-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1366 1366w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/1237962981-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/1237962981-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=683 683w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/01\/1237962981-2.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=341 341w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\"\/><figcaption>Kevin Love scored a team-high 20 points. <\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">NBAE via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Cam Reddish got his first DNP-CD as a Knick in the loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During the Knicks\u2019 third-quarter collapse, Randle threw an interception and two possessions later, they committed a 24-seond violation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When Randle came out, the Knicks closed to 76-69 as Quentin Grimes drilled two straight 3-pointers and had a strong night.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CLEVELAND \u2014 On the bright side, the Knicks took the resurgent Cavaliers down to the wire.\u00a0 On the dim side, it was another wildly erratic night for Julius Randle, who was outplayed by Cavaliers veteran Kevin Love and rookie Evan Mobley.\u00a0 In failing a big test in Northeast Ohio against the resurgent Cavaliers, the Knicks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[495,2336,2335,507,215,210,409],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13153,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13151\/revisions\/13153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbanewsinsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}