Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson explains infamous 'analytically' quote during playoffs loss to Knicks

NBA players regularly draw scrutiny for things they say to the press, but coaches tend to be reserved enough to avoid getting too much egg on their faces. Kenny Atkinson is a recent exception; the Cleveland Cavaliers coach has been mocked for the past six months or so for his now-infamous comments after Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

With the Cavaliers down 3-0 to the New York Knicks, Atkinson was asked how he could give hope to his players, as no team in NBA history has ever overcome a 3-0 series deficit. "Analytically … we've won 2 out of 3," Atkinson said at the time. "We're two out of the three in the expected score. If you believe in process and all that, like, man, take that later. I don't throw that on them. I see it for myself, and if I have this feeling, I can go to our analytical table and be like, man, the expected score was like one point or two — us shooting way below expected, them shooting way over."

As Atkinson explained, analytics can estimate what a game's score should have been based on the shots both teams managed to produce and the expected field goal percentage of those shots. Essentially, if both teams shot exactly as the numbers suggest they would over a long sample, this is what the score would be. Atkinson did not specify which games he meant out of the three, but it was likely Game 1, which Cleveland lost in overtime, and Game 3, which New York won, 121-113. Prime Stats has an expected score metric that had Game 3 at a 113-113 tie, and while New York had an expected 10-point win in Game 1, that accounts for overtime. If the actual score had matched what Cleveland's analytics department projected in regulation, the game never would have gotten an extra period and the Cavaliers would have gone up 1-0.

Obviously, despite the expected scores, the Knicks led the series 3-0 at that point and had won those games by 40 total points. They went on to win Game 4 by 37 points, 130-93, though if it's any consolation, the Prime Stats expected score was a slightly less embarrassing 125-100. Both before the Game 4 sweep and afterward, Atkinson's quote was widely mocked. That includes jabs by multiple Knicks, as Josh Hart joked that "I guess we lost analytically" on his podcast with Jalen Brunson, and Karl-Anthony Towns, who said before the ESPYs that "analytically, we should win" the Best Team award. The word "analytically" has become shorthand for anyone attempting to justify an ugly defeat using numbers.

On Saturday, the Cavaliers faced the Knicks for the first time since that series. New York won again, 109-97, and yet again, the expected score was slightly more favorable to Cleveland, with Prime Stats posting an expected score of 112-103. Atkinson did not point to those numbers after Saturday's defeat. Instead, he attempted to explain the widely derided quote, arguing that the quote was taken out of context, which made the soundbite sound less flattering than his actual answer was.

"I would just say there was no coach more complimentary of the Knicks and honest about our performance and how they dominated us," Atkinson told reporters. "So you live and learn a little bit with those things. But like I said, 99% of my comments were how they dominated us. They were by far the better team. I answered the question, as it was taken, [which was] 'And you're down 3-0, what hope do you have of even giving to your guys?'

"We get a lot of information … and I wasn't lying in that sense, but in no sense was it like, 'Oh, man, we deserve to be winning.' Like zero — zero — thought of that."

Atkinson acknowledged that "no one wants to hear" about process when the outcome is a blown 22-point fourth-quarter lead and a 3-0 deficit, but he was trying to figure out how to rally his troops in an impossible situation. His phrasing has become a meme, but when you're down 3-0 in the playoffs, you'll grasp at any signs of positivity you can find. Atkinson had numbers suggesting the two teams were closer than the scoreboard suggested. Using those numbers to try to inspire his team made sense. Putting them out there in public risked exactly the sort of ridicule he ultimately got. The soundbite eclipsed the quote and the context, and the rest is history.

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