Knicks loss a ‘wake-up call’ for Cavaliers, J.B. Bickerstaff admits

Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff didn’t mince any words after his team’s 101-97 Game 1 loss to the Knicks in their first-round NBA playoff series on Saturday.

Despite entering the contest as the higher seed at No. 4, Cleveland looked firmly second best throughout the night.

Around superstar Donovan Mitchell, the Cavaliers have a young core that does not possess much playoff experience.

Bickerstaff thought it showed.

“We’re well aware of what they were capable of,” Bickerstaff told reporters after the game. “This is a wake-up and a learning lessons for our guys. It’s one of those things that we talk about. You can’t explain or describe what a playoff game is like. You have to go through a playoff game and understand the physicality of it. Understand what you can and can’t get away with.

“We talked about this before and our group is aware, we’ll go as far as quickly we learn from out mistakes. We make these mistakes again, we’ll struggle.”

The two teams played each other four times in the regular season.

The Knicks had the upper hand in those four meetings as well, owning a 3-1 advantage including wins in the final three games.

Bickerstaff also pointed to the Cavaliers’ bench as coming up short.

The Knicks’ bench outscored the Cavaliers’ 37-14, as Josh Hart led the way with 17 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field.

Nobody on Cleveland’s bench had more than Cedi Osman’s nine points.

“Obviously, our bench has to give us a spark. We’ve got to find a way to manufacture some buckets. How do we create for one another? How does our bench support our starting cast? We’ll go back, we’ll take a look at it. But at some point in time, you’ve got to find a way to just put the ball in the basket. And I thought that unit kind of struggled there.”