For three quarters Tuesday night, it looked like the Cleveland Cavaliers had walked into Madison Square Garden and figured out the New York Knicks.

Then the fourth quarter happened. Then overtime happened. And by the time the dust settled, the Knicks had pulled off one of the gutsiest comebacks of their playoff run — erasing a 14-point hole, forcing overtime, and then absolutely burying Cleveland in the extra period to win 115-104.

The Knicks lead the Eastern Conference Finals 1-0. Game 2 is Thursday at the Garden. And the Cavaliers are left to explain how they led this game by double digits going into the fourth quarter and still lost by 11.

The quarter-by-quarter on this one is a roller coaster. Let's ride it.

A Tale of Five Quarters

Here's how the night actually unfolded:

1st quarter: Knicks 23, Cavaliers 16.

2nd quarter: Knicks 23, Cavaliers 32.

3rd quarter: Knicks 23, Cavaliers 35.

4th quarter: Knicks 32, Cavaliers 18.

Overtime: Knicks 14, Cavaliers 3.

The Knicks came out of the gate strong — rested for eight days after sweeping Philly — and led 23-16 after one. But then Cleveland flipped the game completely, outscoring New York 67-46 across the middle two quarters. Donovan Mitchell got loose. The role players started hitting threes. By the end of the third, the Cavs led 83-69 — a 14-point cushion with 12 minutes to play, and the Garden had gone uneasy and quiet.

Conference finals games with a 14-point lead heading into the fourth get closed out by good teams.

Cleveland is a good team. They didn't close it out.

The Fourth-Quarter Rescue

The Knicks outscored Cleveland 32-18 in the fourth quarter to wipe out the entire 14-point deficit and force overtime tied at 101.

It was a defensive quarter as much as an offensive one. Cleveland's 18-point fourth was their lowest-scoring period of regulation. The Knicks turned the defense up to a different level — forcing tough, late-clock jumpers, cleaning the defensive glass, and converting stops into transition offense. Jalen Brunson kept attacking downhill. The role players hit timely shots. And a building that had gone silent in the third roared back to life as the lead shrank possession by possession.

By the time the buzzer sounded on regulation, it was 101-101, and all the momentum in the world belonged to New York.

The Overtime Knockout

Overtime wasn't close. It wasn't even competitive.

The Knicks won the extra period 14-3.

Read that again. In a five-minute overtime of a conference finals game, the Cleveland Cavaliers scored three points. New York's defense — which had been building toward this all fourth quarter — completely strangled Cleveland's offense. The Cavs missed everything. They turned it over. They looked like exactly what they were: a tired team that had emptied the tank to build that third-quarter lead and had nothing left when the Knicks came for them.

An 11-point overtime margin. A 25-point swing from the end of the third quarter to the final buzzer. That's how the Knicks turned a game they were losing by 14 into an 11-point win.

Brunson Was the Engine — Again

Jalen Brunson did Jalen Brunson things.

38 points. 5 rebounds. 6 assists. 3 steals. 15-of-29 shooting. +15.

The Knicks captain carried the offense through the comeback, attacking the rim relentlessly — 24 of his 38 came in the paint, on 12-of-17 shooting inside the arc. While Cleveland loaded up to take away New York's three-point shooting, Brunson just kept getting downhill, drawing fouls, finishing through contact, and dragging the Knicks back into the game one bucket at a time until the defense took over.

This is the fourth straight series in which Brunson has looked like the best guard in the Eastern Conference. He doesn't need the deep threes. He just needs a defender on his hip and a lane to the rim, and he'll get you 38 in a conference finals game without ever forcing it.

The Supporting Cast Closed It

Brunson kept them alive. The supporting cast won it.

Mikal Bridges: 18 points on 7-of-11 (2-of-4 from three), +12. Ruthlessly efficient, and big in the comeback stretch.

Landry Shamet: 9 points, 3-of-3 from three, +25. That +25 was the best plus/minus on the floor for either team. Every time the Knicks needed a momentum bucket in the second half, Shamet seemed to be the one knocking down a three. He was the spark off the bench.

OG Anunoby: 13 points, 8 free throws drawn, +15. His shot wasn't falling (2-of-9), but he got to the line, defended his tail off, and was a +15 in his minutes — clearly impactful in his return.

Karl-Anthony Towns: 13 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists. A double-double, though it came with 7 turnovers — the one ugly spot in his line. He cleaned the glass and made plays, but the Knicks will want fewer giveaways from him in Game 2.

Josh Hart: 13 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists.

The Knicks got double-digit scoring from five players. That's the depth that's carried them all postseason. They're 9-1 in the playoffs now, and they got there in Game 1 without their best shooting night — they were just 10-of-32 from three (31%). They won this game in the paint (60 points), at the defensive end, and in the two periods (fourth quarter and overtime) where it mattered most.

What Went Wrong for Cleveland

For the Cavs, this one is going to sting for 48 hours.

Donovan Mitchell was excellent and it didn't matter. 29 points on 52% shooting, 6 steals, 4 threes. He was Cleveland's best player by a mile. But he finished -13, because when the Knicks turned up the defense in the fourth and overtime, Cleveland had nothing around him.

James Harden had a brutal night. 15 points on 5-of-16 (1-of-8 from three), 6 turnovers, and a true shooting percentage of just 40%. After his vintage closing stretches against Detroit, this was the bad version of 36-year-old Harden — and the Knicks made him pay for it down the stretch.

The fatigue was real. Cleveland played two consecutive seven-game series and then flew to New York to face a team that had been resting since May 10. The Cavs found a second wind in the middle quarters — but a tired team can't sustain it, and scoring 3 points in an overtime period is what an empty tank looks like.

They couldn't close. Up 14 going into the fourth, at a hostile arena, against a team missing its shooting touch — that's a game a championship-level team puts away. Cleveland got outscored 46-21 across the fourth quarter and overtime and let the Knicks rip home court right out of their hands.

What It Means

The Knicks are now 1-0 in the Eastern Conference Finals and have done the single most important thing a favorite can do: they survived their worst stretch of basketball and still won. They trailed by 14 entering the fourth. They shot 31% from three. Their starting center had 7 turnovers. And they still won by 11, because the defense showed up when it mattered and Brunson refused to let the game get away.

That's the mark of a team that believes it's going to the Finals.

For Cleveland, the math is now daunting. They're down 1-0, they have to win Thursday at the Garden or go home trailing 2-0, and they have to do it on the same tired legs that produced a 3-point overtime. They proved they can play with the Knicks for stretches. They have not yet proven they can do it for 48 — or 53 — minutes.

The win probability model now gives the Knicks a 67.7% chance to take Game 2 and a commanding series lead.

What's Next

Game 2: Thursday, May 21. 8 PM ET. Madison Square Garden.

Cleveland will be desperate. They'll have had a day of rest to get their legs back. They'll make adjustments — Mitchell can't be a -13 when he scores 29, and Harden can't go 5-of-16 again. The Cavs are a good team. They were the 4-seed for a reason, and they just beat the 1-seed Pistons in seven games to get here.

But the Knicks just showed them something. Down 14 entering the fourth, in front of their own crowd, against a Cleveland team that had figured them out for two quarters — New York didn't flinch. They turned the defense up, rode Brunson, got a bench spark from Shamet, forced overtime, and then won the extra period by 11.

This is the best Knicks team in a generation, playing the best basketball in the East, one win into a series they now control.

Madison Square Garden is going to be absolutely electric Thursday night.

Game 2: Thursday at 8 PM ET. The Knicks lead 1-0. The Cavs have to answer.