Knicks sweep – The Cleveland Cavaliers’ 2025-26 season ended Monday with a blowout Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, after Cleveland allowed a 20-0 run in the first half. Dennis Schröder missed the game due to illness—and his conference fin
On Monday evening, the Cavaliers’ season didn’t just end—it fractured. Cleveland dropped Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the New York Knicks in a blowout. and the timing of the collapse made it feel irreversible. The Cavs fell behind by letting the Knicks rip off a 20-0 run in the first half.
By the time the final result was in, Cleveland was staring at an offseason packed with questions even after reaching the NBA’s final four.
Dennis Schröder, a guard who has felt the weight of those postseason lights before, didn’t suit up for Game 4 because of an illness. But the absence didn’t soften the story around him—if anything, it made it starker. Schröder’s conference finals record slipped to 0-12 in his career.
That streak didn’t start in Cleveland. It began in 2015, when Schröder was with the Atlanta Hawks. That Hawks team won 60 games. yet still got swept by LeBron James and the Cavs after taking that much of the season. In 2023. the pattern followed Schröder again. this time with the Los Angeles Lakers—Atlanta wasn’t the only stop where a conference finals dream ended in a sweep. The Lakers were swept by the eventual champion Denver Nuggets.
Now it’s Cleveland’s turn. The Knicks have advanced by sweeping the Cavs, and the momentum behind that sweep has been brutal: New York has won 11 straight playoff games.
Schröder hasn’t been the lone reason those postseason endings went the wrong way, and that part matters. He’s played for 11 different teams in his career, and his consistency as a contributor has never been in question. Still, the postseason record doesn’t flatter him. He has yet to experience the joy of winning more than eight playoff games in a single postseason run. and the question for what comes next hangs over him as a former first-round draft pick from Atlanta.
For the Cavaliers as an organization, the questions aren’t limited to one player. They now have to decide how all-in they want to be with a core that, as the team’s current reality suggests, sits a long way from real contention even after reaching the conference finals this year.
The sequence is straightforward: seasons that looked capable of something bigger ended the same way—through conference finals setbacks. and then a sweep. Monday’s Game 4 blowout only brought the latest chapter to a close. with the Knicks extending their winning streak and Schröder’s conference finals struggles continuing on schedule.
Cleveland Cavaliers New York Knicks Eastern Conference Finals Game 4 Dennis Schröder conference finals 0-12 20-0 run NBA playoffs