The Cavaliers couldn’t get it done in their first matchup with the New York Knicks since the Eastern Conference Finals.

A dominant second quarter from Jalen Brunson led the Knicks to a beatdown of the Cavs that they couldn't come back from. Brunson finished with 31 points, 18 of them in that quarter.

After playing such a good brand of basketball last night, none of that continued against the Knicks.

Tonight, there were a few major issues that cost them this game:

Rebounding

Probably one of the biggest reasons for the loss was being outrebounded. New York won the rebound battle 49-40, but the offensive rebounds did the heavy lifting.

As a team, the Knicks snagged 16 offensive rebounds that led to 26 second-chance points.

Karl-Anthony Towns had Evan Mobley’s number, grabbing five of those offensive boards himself and putting them back in.

Despite the entire team crashing the glass at times, they left the perimeter open for so many three-pointers to go in. That then led to James Harden becoming the primary defender.

James Harden

Harden had a terrible night. It could have been just a one-off and classified as his worst performance of the season, but he has been playing poorly all year. This has become a recurring issue.

The team got out of the defensive situations that lost them the game in the playoffs, though, by switching Meleek Thomas and Peyton Watson onto Brunson, but still, too many times, Harden found himself alone.

Including his offensive performance tonight, he ended with seven points on 2-for-9 shooting. A -23 plus/minus was the worst among the starters. Bad performance after bad performance has Harden really losing his team games this season.

Late in the games, he can make a shot or two that gets you excited, but that is all he brings every night.

Good Changes Too Late

It was way too late in the game for Donovan Mitchell to start going off in this game. Down by 16 with less than six minutes to go, he came in and put on a show.

Ending the night with 37 points was great to see. The issue is, though, that it was just too late; if he was in, maybe even two minutes earlier in the fourth and did that, then the game is either in the Cavs’ hands or going into overtime.

I loved to see him play that way with a sense of urgency and wanting to help the team win; he just needs to turn it on sooner.

The Cavs move to 5-5 on the year and travel to Charlotte on Monday, hoping to respond and return back to winning ways.