Cleveland Cavaliers vs. New York Knicks Prediction on February 21, 2025

Match info

On Friday, February 21, two championship candidates in the world’s top men’s basketball league square off, as the 2024–25 NBA regular season nears its completion. At 7 p.m. local time, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Eastern Conference leaders, will host the New York Knicks, the conference’s third-best team, at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Meeting statistics

Following the NBA All-Star break, the Knicks won’t be able to ease back into action. They play some of the best teams in the NBA in the next three games, including the only two Eastern Conference clubs with a better record than theirs.

The Chicago Bulls will visit Madison Square Garden on Thursday, giving the Knicks (36-18) a soft spot on their schedule when they return to action. It becomes considerably more challenging after that. The Knicks are visiting the Cleveland Cavaliers (44-10), which are the best team in the Eastern Conference, on Friday. After that, they’ll travel to Boston to play the second-seeded Celtics on Sunday.

The Knicks are 0-1 against the Cavs this season. Cleveland narrowly defeated the Knicks 110-104 at the Garden in their only meeting, which took place in October. The Knicks were still figuring out their chemistry after making summer trades for Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges, and that was only the third game of the season.

However, the Cavaliers have also changed their squad since that game. They strengthened their offense, which was already among the best in the NBA, by acquiring sharpshooting forward De’Andre Hunter from the Atlanta Hawks in one of the biggest trades prior to this month’s trade deadline. Hunter joined a group led by Evan Mobley (18.5), Darius Garland (21.6), and Donovan Mitchell (23.9 points per game), with an average of 18.8 points per game. Cleveland ranks first in the East and second in the NBA, with an average of 122.7 points per game. But before the Knicks, the Cavs play the Brooklyn Nets, entering the game with a four-game winning streak.

The first of the Knicks and Cavaliers’ three remaining encounters is this Friday’s game.

Head-to-head

Throughout the regular season, the Knicks and Cavaliers have faced off in 227 games, with the Knicks winning 121 and the Cavaliers 106. They’ve participated in 14 playoff games, with two wins for the Cavaliers and 12 for the Knicks.

Match analytics

We think Cavs supporters shouldn’t be concerned about the Knicks posing a threat in the upcoming game or the playoffs. To be honest, we don’t believe the Knicks are currently prepared to win the 12 playoff games and take first place in the East. Their squad shouts to us: fantastic regular season squad. No more than that. On paper, the Knicks should have a more playoff-ready squad than the Cavaliers since teams with two small guards—in this case, Mitchell and Garland—generally perform poorly in the postseason. Let’s return to the regular season, though…

One significant statistic is that Cleveland has covered the spread in a larger percentage of its home games than in its away games. Given that they’ve covered 20 times in 29 home games, a handicap wager on the Cavaliers, such as -10.5, appears to be profitable.

Tip: Handicap – Cleveland Cavaliers (-10.5). Given that both the Cavs and the Knicks have one game to play before locking horns, game lines for their face-off are yet unavailable on the best basketball bookmakers who offer NBA markets.