{"id":400039,"date":"2026-11-12T10:59:37","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T09:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/?p=400039"},"modified":"2026-11-15T16:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T16:30:07","slug":"james-harden-silences-critics-cavaliers-beat-knicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/james-harden-silences-critics-cavaliers-beat-knicks\/","title":{"rendered":"James Harden silences his critics as Cavaliers beat Knicks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">James Harden turned back the clock to lead the Cavaliers to a <strong>115-107<\/strong> win on the New York Knicks&#8217; home floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8216;The Beard&#8217; produced his best performance of the season with <strong>32 points, 4 assists and five three-pointers<\/strong> in 32 minutes on court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Cavs are also back to .500 (<strong>6-6<\/strong>) and brought the Knicks&#8217; winning streak to an end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;This is my 18th season in the NBA. My name is James Harden and I used to score a lot of points. Now it&#8217;s like&#8230; Everything&#8217;s fine. Great,&#8221; he joked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I&#8217;m still scoring, but I&#8217;m also trying to influence the game in a lot of other ways. I think that&#8217;s probably what people don&#8217;t quite understand,&#8221; he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:29px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cavs at Knicks | James Harden Highlights | 11.11.2026\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/M45_-EPKwSc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:29px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before visiting the Knicks, Harden had been averaging <strong>15.3 points<\/strong> on a poor 34% shooting from the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of his <em>haters <\/em>had already been calling for him to be traded and claiming that his new contract was a glaring mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is worth remembering that on 20 August he agreed a three-year, $97 million extension, with the final year a player option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;When I was averaging 35 or 36 points, people said: &#8216;You can&#8217;t win like that.&#8217; Then when I dropped to averaging in the twenties, people said: &#8216;You can&#8217;t win like that.&#8217; In the end people will always talk&#8230; That&#8217;s why I prefer to focus on myself. On what I need to do. On getting in good physical shape, getting to know my team-mates and learning to play a different type of basketball because I&#8217;m no longer the quick player I used to be,&#8221; he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Record without reward<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Knicks came into the game unstoppable, as did Karl Anthony-Towns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Dominican big man has started the new season on fire with ten consecutive double-doubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And against the Cavaliers he did not miss out, <strong>making it 11 in a row<\/strong> and equalling a mark held by legendary captain Willis Reed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reed and Towns are the only players in history to start a season with 11 consecutive double-doubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Karl-Anthony Towns RECORD-TYING PERFORMANCE vs Cleveland | November 11, 2026\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qorD8h3K8Rg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last night he stood out with <strong>21 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists<\/strong> on 7-of-11 shooting from the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, they ran out of steam towards the end and could not avoid another defeat at Madison Square Garden (4-3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We were in the game the whole time. But we lacked defensive plays and baskets in the key moments,&#8221; said Brunson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Goodbye Mikal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last night the alarm bells rang over Mikal Bridges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Knicks wing was erratic with his shooting again, and did not play in the closing stretch of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Mike Brown&#8217;s own words, both Shamet and McBride are playing better than him right now, and therefore deserve to be on the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He finished with 17 minutes and just <strong>2 points<\/strong> to his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Shamet:<strong> 12 points and 4 assists<\/strong> in 29 minutes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>McBride:<strong> 19 points<\/strong> in 27 minutes. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Sometimes it&#8217;s going to be difficult to find minutes for Mikal,&#8221; Brown admitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;And maybe for Josh (Hart) too, as Shamet and McBride are playing very well right now,&#8221; he admitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hart returned to the court last night after missing the previous three games. He played 26 minutes, finishing with <strong>6 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>(Cover photo: Reuters)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cavaliers guard leads the win over the Knicks with his best performance of the season: 32 points and five three-pointers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":400040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[83,159,115,12],"class_list":["post-400039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba-post-match","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-james-harden","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-new-york-knicks","no-featured-image-padding","resize-featured-image"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2026-11-12T002030Z_748353277_MT1USATODAY30338739_RTRMADP_3_NBA-CLEVELAND-CAVALIERS-AT-NEW-YORK-KNICKS.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kiera Gardner","author_link":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/author\/kiera\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400216,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400039\/revisions\/400216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}