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CLEVELAND (AP) — Cavaliers guard Dennis Schroder missed Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Knicks on Monday night because of an illness.

Schroder is averaging 3.3 points and 15 minutes in the first three games of the series. The 13-year veteran was acquired from the Sacramento Kings on Feb. 1.

Schroder is averaging 5.5 points during the playoffs. He had 19 points, including three 3-pointers, in Cleveland's 125-120 victory over Toronto on April 29 in a first-round game.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Knicks superfan Fat Joe may have to sit “All The Way Up” in the stands at Rocket Arena after the rapper said the Cavaliers “took the tickets away” he purchased to sit courtside for Game 4. 

Fat Joe appeared on ESPN’s “NBA Today” live in Cleveland when he said, unprompted, that the Cavs took the tickets from him because they didn’t want Knicks fans sitting that close. 

Fat Joe says the Cavs stopped him from buying courtside seats for game 3 & 4 . They told him no Knicks fans allowed via @espnpic.twitter.com/wmvmxeN9ai

— 2Cool2Blog (@2Cool2Blog) May 25, 2026

“We had bought some courtside tickets to the game and once they found out it was superfan Fat Joe, they was like, I can’t sit courtside. New York Knick fans can’t sit courtside,” he said on the program. “They took the tickets away courtside after we purchased it, so shame on you all.” 

In fact, Fat Joe wasn’t the only Knicks fan that semeed to have their tickets revoked.

At least 10 other Knicks fans with courtside seats had been called by a Cavaliers executive and told they no longer had seats, a league source told The Post.

After those fans were informed they no longer had courtside seats, the Cavs did relocate them to a higher section inside the arena for Game 4.

In a post on social media, podcast host and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis claimed that the Cavaliers had “blocked me from buying” seats courtside.

He also said that Cavs owner Dan Gilbert had ticketholders with courtside seats sign a DocuSign that they would not resell their tickets or they “would face a lifetime ban” by the team. 

The Cavaliers did provide their side of the story when reached about the situation with Fat Joe.

“Playoff courtside seating is governed by a specific agreement that prohibits the resale or transfer of tickets without approval,” a Cavaliers spokesperson told The Post. “All courtside ticket holders are required to comply with the terms of the single-game playoff agreement.”

While not courtside, a number of Knicks celeb fans were on hand for Game 4.

Spike Lee and Timothée Chalamet posted on social media from Cleveland hours ahead of the game and Fat Joe was seen inside the arena.

Pop icon Taylor Swift and her fiancé, and Cleveland native, Travis Kelce, sat courtside during Game 3.  

Teams have tried to keep Knicks fans out of their arenas during the postseason, with the Sixers notably attempting to prevent visiting supporters from invading the City of Brotherly Love by limiting ticket sales to those who lived in the greater Philadelphia area.

The attempt fell flat as Knicks fans took over Xfinity Mobile Arena during the two games in Philly. 

Those games also included appearances by Lee, Chalamet, Ben Stiller and Tracy Morgan. 

Fat Joe, a Bronx native, has a longstanding history of Knicks fandom and has been at Madison Square Garden plenty during the course of the team’s playoff run this season. 

During his appearance on ESPN, he told the panel the reason he went to Cleveland was “so we can be done tonight.” 

The Knicks are on the verge of their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999. 

The Cleveland Cavaliers will try to avoid being swept off their home floor.

Share your thoughts as the game unfolds. If you aren’t a member of the community, sign up so you can talk to your fellow Cavalier fans and make your voice heard!

Go Cavs!

The Knicks return to Rocket Arena tonight, leading the Eastern Conference Finals 3-0 over the exhausted Cavaliers. After building up (and blowing) a 22-point lead in Game One, Cleveland has been overwhelmed by New York’s pace, physicality, and depth of talent. Kenny Atkinson insists that his Cavs are winning analytically, but that’s the irrational talk of a desperate man. No team in NBA history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series, and, given New York’s 10-game murder streak, Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, et al., are unlikely to be the first.

Tip off is at 8 PM EST on ESPN. This is your game thread. This is Fear the Sword. Please don’t post large photos, GIFs, or links to illegal streams in the thread. Be cool to each other, don’t injure yourselves with those black market confetti cannons, and go Knicks!

In just a short while, the Knicks will begin playing in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, needing just one more win to send the team to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999. It has been a postseason to remember, as the Knicks are currently rocking a ten-game winning streak—making them just the tenth team in history to win ten straight games in a single postseason. And not only have they won, but they have largely dominated, as they have an NBA-record +234 point differential across their first thirteen playoff games.

Making the Finals would be a remarkable vindication for so many different individuals. For Leon Rose, who went from being a player agent with CAA to serving as the president for the Knicks and making a series of shrewd moves which positioned the franchise as perennial contenders. For Mike Brown, who has handled several ups and downs in his first season as the team’s head coach only to have them on the brink of history. And perhaps above all else, for Jalen Brunson, who has continuously been the recipient of skepticism over the ability of a small point guard to be the primary option for a legitimate championship contender. While the team is in this position because of the contributions of several players—from the starters to the bench players—Brunson has unquestionably been the face of the franchise since signing with the team in 2022, and leading them to the Finals would further cement his place on the Mount Rushmore of all-time greats in Knicks history.

Making the Finals would not be the end of the road, of course. The Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs are currently locked in a 2-2 tie in the Western Conference Finals, and whichever team comes out on top would face the Knicks for the rights to raise the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Either squad would be a fearsome opponent, as the Thunder are the reigning champions and the Spurs have the best player on the planet in the form of the 7’4” Victor Wembanyama. The Knicks will likely be seen as underdogs regardless of which team they face off against, and given the team’s lengthy history of disappointment and heartbreak, fans could certainly be forgiven for expecting the other shoe to drop at any moment.

Still, the way they have been playing, it’s tough to count the Knicks out against anybody. Fans have every right to believe that this could finally be the year. And either way, to go from the perennial losers that the Knicks were for most of this century to being just one win away from the Finals is an accomplishment that should not go overlooked. If and when they do finally finish the Cavaliers off and cement their title as Eastern Conference champions, it will be an emotional moment of jubilation—not just for the players and coaches and front office members, but for the entire city of New York.

Just one more win to make it to the final dance. Tune into ESPN at 8:00 to see if they can make it happen. Let’s go Knicks.

…oh, the Mets lost to the Reds today, by the way. Nolan McLean got the absolute crap kicked out of him for the second straight start. He gave up seven runs in just 3.2 innings of work. The bullpen trio of Austin Warren, Jonathan Pintaro, and Tobias Myers combined for 5.1 scoreless innings, but the bats couldn’t get the team back into the game against Nick Lodolo and the rest of the Reds pitching staff. Cleanup hitter Marcus Semien(?) hit a solo homer against Lodolo in the sixth and they also scratched out a run in the seventh and that was about it. The Mets have now lost four straight.

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Win Probability Added

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Carson Benge, +5% WPA
Big Mets loser: Nolan McLean, -33% WPA
Mets pitchers: -31% WPA
Mets hitters: -19% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Carson Benge leadoff hit-by-pitch in the first, +3.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: J.J. Bleday solo homer in the third, -9.1% WPA

CLEVELAND — Josh Hart, in his trademark style, started with a joke when formulating his thoughts.

What was his immediate reaction when owner James Dolan mandated the Knicks reach the Finals this year?

“We better get to the Finals,” Hart said after Knicks shootaround Monday morning ahead of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, “or we’re gonna get traded.”

The comment was tongue in cheek, but there is no doubt that there was significant pressure on the Knicks to win the East this year.

That expectation was set when Tom Thibodeau was fired despite reaching the conference finals. It was solidified in January when Dolan said that “getting to the Finals, we absolutely got to do.”

Monday morning, the Knicks were preparing to fulfill that mandate.

“We all had that aspiration regardless, so we didn’t really need to hear that because we all wanted that moment, we all wanted to see that, especially after last year being in the Eastern Conference finals and coming up short,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We understand that we’ve gotta take that next step. So what he’s talking about is also how we all felt.

“We wanted to go out there and we wanted to take that next step. Get past the Eastern Conference finals. It was historical last year, the city went crazy and it was awesome to see the city so alive but there’s new standards now, there’s new expectations and we’ve raised the expectations so we knew what we came into this season to do and what we want to accomplish and we’ve just gotta keep our head down and continue to focus on the goal at hand.”

Hart echoed a similar sentiment — that Dolan wasn’t putting any more pressure on the team than they were already putting on themselves.

“Not pressure because I think that’s the goal that we all kind of have,” Hart said. “Obviously, it hits a little bit different when the big dog says it. But that’s the goal that each and every one of us has. And we’re our own biggest critics, so this kind of adds a little bit more fuel to that internal fire of the hunger to get there.”

It is also notable when Dolan delivered that mandate.

It’s hard to remember with how the Knicks have played in the playoffs, but there was a point in the regular season where they were spiraling. Dolan’s comments — breaking a two-year media silence — came Jan. 5, just a few hours before the Knicks were punked by the Pistons in concerning fashion. It was in the middle of a stretch in which the Knicks lost nine of 11 games.

At the time, they looked far from a Finals team.

“The regular season is full of peaks and valleys and ebbs and flows, that’s how a regular season goes,” Towns said. “And you kind of expect a run like that to happen at a certain part of the season. It was just the most inopportune time, especially when things weren’t looking great and New York fans, rightfully so, are not the most patient. So we understood that.

“Tough stretch for us but it also helped us grow and be more unified and understand that if we continue to believe in each other, we continue to lean on each other, we can get out of any situation regardless of it’s a 2-9 run in the season or it’s a 22-point deficit in Game 1. As long as we continue to believe in the goal and continue to lean on each other, we’ll be fine.”

Happy Memorial Day! Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals is tonight between the New York Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Watch it on ESPN at 8 p.m. ET. The Knicks lead the series 3-0 and will win their first Eastern Conference championship since 1999 if they win tonight. Enjoy the game everyone!

CLEVELAND — It’s an orange and blue wave.

Riled-up Knicks fans have taken over Cleveland on the eve of Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals against the Cavaliers on Monday — taking advantage of bargain-rate ticket prices in the Ohio city.

Thousands of Big Apple hoops faithful flocked to Rocket Arena for a chance to watch the Knicks sweep the Cavs and earn their first trip to the finals in 27 years — and a shot at the first championship in 53 years.

“It’s insane. We weren’t even planning on staying,” said diehard fan Monica Martinez, who told The Post she drove for six hours to get to Cleveland. “We extended our trip. I waited 25 years for this, so we are going to do it all and do it up.”

Many wallet-conscious New Yorkers said they made the trip to Cleveland since they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to see their favorite team play at Madison Square Garden, where tickets cost hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Most paid between just $150 and $200 to get into Rocket Arena.

Forest Hills resident Vernon Balanza said he copped tickets to Game 3 on Saturday for just $137 — a far cry from the arm-and-a-leg cost to get into the Garden for a playoff game.

“It’s just too expensive,” Balanza said of the World’s Most Famous Arena in Manhattan. “The cheapest ticket is like $500, $600. Even then, I can’t get myself to pay for that.”

Brooklyn native Archer Batravil, who now calls Miami home, made the trip from the Sunshine State.

“It means the world to me as a born and bred New Yorker, living and dying with every shot,” he said. “It’s been [27] years since 1999. I’m ready for the revenge game against the Spurs.”

The San Antonio Spurs, who beat the Knicks in the 1999 NBA Finals, are currently dueling with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals.

Even former Knick Stephon Marbury got into the action. A clip posted on X captured the former hoopster rallying passengers on a flight to Cleveland for the game.

“After the game, not before the game, we going crazy,” he said. “Go New York, go New York go!”