{"id":496320,"date":"2025-12-26T04:48:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/496320\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T04:48:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:48:19","slug":"jalen-brunson-leads-knicks-in-comeback-win-over-cleveland-cavaliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/496320\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson leads Knicks in comeback win over Cleveland Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jalen Brunson hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:05 left Thursday afternoon for the host <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/new-york-knicks\/18\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New York Knicks;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New York Knicks<\/a>, who overcame a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Cleveland\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/cleveland-cavaliers\/5\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cavaliers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Cavaliers<\/a>, 126-124.<\/p>\n<p>Brunson scored 13 of his 34 points over the final 7:15 for the Knicks, who mounted their biggest comeback win of the season. Reserves Jordan Clarkson (25 points) and Tyler Kolek (16 points, nine assists) had big games while Karl-Anthony Towns (11 points, 14 rebounds) posted a double-double.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Josh Hart scored 15 points before exiting with an ankle injury with 7:42 left while Mikal Bridges added 12 points.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson is guarded by Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell during the first half at Madison Square Garden, Dec. 25, 2025.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"641\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/dbc233c90ce69b6d887fe1a5d95d99da.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson is guarded by Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell during the first half at Madison Square Garden, Dec. 25, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Donovan Mitchell scored 34 points for the\u00a0Cavaliers, who lost a game in which they led entering the fourth quarter for the first time this season. Darius Garland recorded a double-double with 20 points and 10 assists while Jaylon Tyson (16 points), Evan Mobley (14 points, nine rebounds) and De&#8217;Andre Hunter (13 points) all got into double figures off the bench. Sam Merrill added 11 points.<\/p>\n<p>Mobley (calf) returned from a five-game absence.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Cavaliers\u00a0led 107-91 before the Knicks mounted the final surge in a game filled with dueling runs. Brunson tied the game at 113-113 by hitting a 3-pointer with 3:48 left before Cleveland scored the next four points.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Kolek, who had 11 points in the fourth, hit a 3-pointer and the\u00a0Cavaliers\u00a0missed a pair of shots before Bridges put the Knicks ahead by sinking a fallaway with 1:29 left. Garland answered with a layup before Brunson&#8217;s go-ahead 3-pointer.<\/p>\n<p>Garland missed from 16 feet, and Towns put back a miss by Kolek to extend the Knicks&#8217; lead to 123-119. Mitchell and OG Anunoby swapped dunks before Mitchell missed a long 3-pointer with less than 11 seconds left, Mitchell Robinson missed a pair of free throws and Mitchell sank a desperation 3-pointer with 2.7 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n<p>Towns split a pair of free throws with 1.1 seconds left, and Mitchell&#8217;s 77-foot heave was short as time expired.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Cavaliers\u00a0opened the game with a 20-5 run and led 38-23 at the end of the first before the Knicks went on an 18-0 run in the second and took a 60-58 halftime lead. Cleveland ended the third quarter on a 25-13 run to take a 96-84 lead into the fourth.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beaconjournal.com\/story\/sports\/pro\/cavs\/2025\/12\/25\/cleveland-cavs-score-today-new-york-knicks-christmas-day-game\/87910038007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Jalen Brunson-led New York Knicks rally to beat Cleveland Cavaliers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Jalen Brunson-led New York Knicks rally to beat Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:05 left Thursday afternoon for the host New York Knicks, who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,791,864,576,288,2286,2131,327,563,1260,1247,6,191,741,1166,2484,1254],"class_list":{"0":"post-496320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-darius-garland","14":"tag-donovan-mitchell","15":"tag-evan-mobley","16":"tag-jalen-brunson","17":"tag-jaylon-tyson","18":"tag-jordan-clarkson","19":"tag-josh-hart","20":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","21":"tag-mikal-bridges","22":"tag-mitchell-robinson","23":"tag-nba","24":"tag-new-york-knicks","25":"tag-og-anunoby","26":"tag-sam-merrill","27":"tag-the-cavaliers","28":"tag-tyler-kolek"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115784063708322526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}