ESPN.com · Oct 22, 2025
Why it's now -- or maybe never -- for the Cavaliers and Knicks
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TEX WINTER, ONE of the 20th century's great basketball coaches, once summed up a classic NBA paradox with five words: Everything turns on a trifle.
The league's best teams often teeter on a knife's edge, thriving thanks to continuity but in a constant state of fragility, which explains the current state of the weakened Eastern Conference.
The two favorites, who meet in a made-for-television opener Wednesday in New York, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Knicks (7 p.m. ET on ESPN), are in this place because of the consistency of their rosters and misfortune of fellow contenders.