On Thursday afternoon, the Cleveland Cavaliers continued their frustrating 2025-26 NBA season with a road loss against the New York Knicks on Christmas Day. Despite leading by 17 points at one point in the fourth quarter, the Cavs were blitzed down the stretch of this game, ultimately falling by a final score of 126-124.
As has usually been the case, Donovan Mitchell carried the Cavs on offense in this one, scoring 34 points to go along with seven rebounds and six assists.
Mitchell had a couple of vicious slam dunks in this game, including one in the waning seconds of the contest that kept hope faintly alive for the Cavs before the Knicks shut the door.
At one point, ESPN cameras caught Mitchell, who was mic’d up for the game, revealing the reason for his dunking ways on Christmas.
“I only dunk when she’s here,” said Mitchell, referring to girlfriend CoCo Jones, who was in attendance courtisde at Madison Square Garden, per SportsCenter on X, formerly Twitter.
Unfortunately for Mitchell, his dunks and other highlight plays were not quite enough to keep the Cavs from blowing a huge in this lead, despite Evan Mobley returning from his calf strain unexpectedly.
The Cavs now sit at 17-15 on the season, well below where most fans expected them to be at this point in the campaign. Cleveland has been banged up by injuries in 2025-26, with Darius Garland missing the opening chunk of the season, and the team also still waiting on Max Strus to make his season debut.
Still, it’s safe to say that Cavs fans are justified in their frustration with the team so far.
In any case, the Cavs will next take the floor on Saturday on the road against the Houston Rockets. That game is slated to tip off at 8:00 pm ET from Houston.