It appears as though the New York Knicks have Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson in a state of delusion heading into Monday night's potential series-clincher.
Despite the fact that Cleveland trails 0-3 in this best-of-seven series and, based on history, is pretty much guaranteed to be sent packing from these Eastern Conference Finals in the not-too-distant future, the veteran headman finds himself seemingly grasping at straws in an attempt to remain upbeat about his club's current situation.
During a practice media session on Sunday, Atkinson stunned many reporters when he made the bold claim that "analytically, I think we've won" this series so far.
"I said three out of three, we're two out of three in the expected wins [this series]," Atkinson said. "I don't know if you guys follow that -- the expected score. We've won two out of three."
Kenny Atkinson says Cavs have 'analytically' won series against Knicks
Atkinson would try to strengthen his statement by noting how essentially all of the games played in the Eastern Conference Finals have seen an incredibly close expected score projection, particularly highlighting Friday night's Game 3, where "our expected score was like one point or two" even with "us shooting way below expected."
The Cavs did struggle mightily from long range in their last outing, going just 12-of-41 from distance, while the Knicks managed to cash in on roughly 40.0 percent of their own attempts.
This kind of inconsistent shooting has been a theme all series for Cleveland, as they've cashed in on just 42.9 percent of their shots from the floor and 29.4 percent from deep. New York, meanwhile, is leading all conference finals teams in both field goal and long-range percentage at 51.6 percent and 35.4 percent, respectively.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to proving just how asinine Atkinson's analytics case truly is for, from the aforementioned shooting splits and per-game point differential (New York registers in at plus-13.3) to the Knicks' absurd net rating of 13.6 and the sheer fact that they've yet to lose a single game, be it base-line or advanced, it appears virtually all metrics point to the contrary.
Regardless of whether or not the Cavaliers coach accepts it, the reality is that the Knicks have a chance to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals for the first time in the 21 Century on Monday evening, and, in the process, could give themselves a major edge against whoever winds up coming out of the West.
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