Blown out? A nine point differential? Yup, it was a blowout, not including a late Knicks run in the final five minutes of the game. The Cavs led 40-21 at the end of the first quarter, 63-40 at the half, 77-58 at the third quarter mark and led by as much as nineteen with six minutes in the game and seats emptying quickly until the Knicks went on one of their too little, too late frenetic paces of steals and three point shots being drained before they ran out of game clock. This game was never in doubt.

What is in doubt, however has been the status for next season and into the future for the Cavs’ still-young superstar, James. As usual when the Cavs come to town, the conversation veers from the game itself to the more important question-and-answer game of “Will He or Won’t He” starring LeBron James. While this magical player continues to dominate every game he plays in, the buzz going around this arena remains about whether the Cleveland superstar, playing with an expiring contract, will opt to leave his Ohio roots and decide to play out the rest of his career under the bright lights of Broadway.

At halftime, Yankees pitcher, C.C. Sabathia, here along with several of his championship teammates to bask in the warm embrace of Knicks fans dying to cheer for a winner, ventured the opinion that James would indeed, take his next act to New York.

“I’ve told him there’s no better place to be a winner than in New York,” said the former Cleveland Indian hurler who got to know James as a high profile athlete in that town. “If I’m a betting man, I would say he will be here in New York next year.”

James scored 19 of his 33 points in the first quarter as this game became a huge snoozefest through three and a half quarters. His performance could only make Knicks fans swoon and sigh in a wishful manner.

James came to play on the night the Garden crowd was feted not only with the presence of baseball champions who play to the north of the arena, somewhere up in the Bronx, but with celebrities from many walks of life. Ah, to be young and rich and an admired athlete in the city that never sleeps.

“I got an opportunity to say congratulations to C.C. (Sabathia), A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez), Robinson Cano, and Joba Chamberlain,” said James after the game. “Obviously, it was an unbelievable season for those guys and they deserved it.”

James smiled at the thought of being a champion in a city like New York and an arena with the history of Madison Square Garden.

“There is a lot of tradition in this building,” he said. “A lot of great players have been through this building that have laid down a lot of statistical things as individuals and as teams. It is a great building. To be a part of that and be able to play the game of basketball at a high level is great.”

You could almost sense the sighing and wishful thinking may be a two-way street, with James imagining himself as a star in the Big Apple.

“It is a humbling experience for myself,” said James. “You grow up in a city like Akron, Ohio. It is a really, really small city. For me, as a kid, you always wish and dream to be on the NBA level. Now that I am here playing for my hometown team and then be able to go on the road to showcase my talent to people who appreciate the way I play the game of basketball at a high level is humbling. I thank the New York fans. It is great that they really respect the way I play the game of basketball.”

“It’s the atmosphere, here,” he continued. “A lot of stars in the building. It’s humbling to know that you have guys like the Yankees come out and J. Z. You see some of the Giants out here and John Legend and Chris Rock. You almost feel like you’re a performer sitting on the stage and they’re watching you perform.”

You can just tell this kid can imagine himself on the biggest stage of all, lighting up the old arena in a way it hasn’t been lit since Patrick Ewing’s heyday, maybe even further back to the Knicks championship teams of 1970 and 1973.

“When I was a kid, I visualized playing for all the NBA teams,” James said. “There’s a lot of great individual NBA players that I would love to play alongside of and try to contend for an NBA championship. At the end of the day, a max contract doesn’t really matter to me. It’s all about winning. When that day comes next summer, I want to put myself  in a position where I want to win. If I feel a team is capable of winning, I’ll make my decision like that.”

That has to make Knicks fans sink a little, hearing that winning is James’ sole objective in determining where he’s going to play next year. Winning hasn’t exactly been part of the Knicks tradition over the past 36 years or so. That 1973 championship was the franchise’s last.

The Cavaliers are in an interesting position as far as LeBron’s future is concerned. Many of their players, including James, Shaquille O’Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, have expiring contracts this year so the feeling is this particular Cavs team won’t have the same look next year, either.

Cavs guard Daniel Gibson had an interesting take on the Cavaliers’ position, given the fact so many of the Cavs’ players have expiring contracts. I asked him if the team’s approach to this season has a little more urgency to it because of the potential of having this team ripped apart after this season.

“I never thought about it until you just asked me,” Gibson said. “We approach it as, right now, he’s still a Cav so we’re not thinking about next year. For us, we need to take care of business right now. Nobody knows what’s going to happen next year in this league. Every year you play basketball, you play for the ultimate goal. The fact that he’s potentially leaving next year, I don’t think any of us are thinking about it.”

Ilgauskas took an interesting position.

“I can see coming to New York to play if you’re leaving a team to play for the Yankees, already a winning organization,” said the seven-footer they call Z. “But, coming to New York to play for a struggling team like the Knicks? I’d rather stay in Cleveland where I know I have a chance to win.”

Somehow, I don’t think the Knicks will be trying to sign Ilgauskas anytime soon.

Knicks fans will have to hope when next July comes along, and LeBron is sitting on his porch in Akron, Ohio pondering his next career move, he’ll think about what he can accomplish in an offense devised by Knick coach, Mike D’Antoni, a man most NBA players would take a discount in pay to play for because of his wide-open offensive schemes.

At this point, as we watch the Knicks record fall to 1-5, it’s about the only thing they have left to dream about.

Follow Scott Mandel at www.sportsreporters.com or twitter

A tough week for Mike D'Antoni. (Jim Leary/NYSD)

The second quarter was kinder to the Knicks as it saw them get back into the game. Al Harrington was particularly impressive as he went on an eight-point scoring streak, the last basket coming at 5:21 left in the first half, bringing the deficit down to one point. While James killed New York in the first quarter, the Knicks defense held him to just eight points in the second. The first half came to a close as Chris Duhon nailed a three-pointer with 3.7 seconds left to cut the Cavaliers’ lead to 55-52. Unfortunately, Ben Wallace grabbed two of those points right back posting up a lay-up as time expired.

Harrington tied his season-high mark of 39 points in the game to lead the Knicks. He also brought down 13 rebounds. David Lee had a quiet game, yet still recorded his twelfth straight double-double with 12 points and 10 boards. This feat made him the first Knick since Patrick Ewing in 1995 to record at least 12 consecutive double-doubles (Ewing went on to have 17 straight).

The Knicks had the right gameplan. They know what LeBron does, so why try and foolishly stop him? As Harrington said, what they tried to do was “keep the other guys down.” That, however, didn’t work as it seemed every teammate James dished the ball to hit their shots. This was evident with his 15 assists.

“It would be nice to double him, but LeBron is also one of the best passers in the league,” Head Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I would rather play him hard, but you can’t leave Mo Williams just sitting there and go double him, Mo Williams is an All-Star.”

The Knicks took the lead for the first time in the game with 1:27 left in the third quarter. That’s how impressive the Cavaliers are. You can’t just double-team James every time and expect to get away with it. In addition to Williams, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Wally Szczerbiak are dangerous weapons and they exhibited that last night. Ilgauskas netted 15 points, while Szczerbiak posted a double-double (12 points, 13 rebounds).

When asked which performance was more impressive, Kobe Bryant’s record-setting 61 points at the Garden on Monday night or LeBron’s triple-double last night, Harrington picked James, stating “not only did he have 52, he had 15 assists and that’s actually 30 points. So he affected the game with eighty points.”

With 5:14 left in the fourth quarter, Harrington drained a three-pointer, which was followed by a Nate Robinson jumper to shrivel the Cavs’ lead to 96-95. It was as close as 102-100 with 1:06 remaining in regulation with Cleveland leading. The Knicks just simply couldn’t hit anything in the clutch. In a span of 27 seconds, Harrington, Wilson Chandler and Duhon all missed three-pointers. The Cavaliers made the free throws when it mattered, and held on for the 107-102 victory.

“This is one of those games that you can say is a feel good loss. The last two times we played them they blew us out of the building in the first half,” Harrington said. “I think we are showing our growth. Obviously they got to a big lead tonight and we could of went the other way, but we fought back and ended up getting the lead.”

Which was the bigger story: LeBron showcasing his limitless talent by posting a triple-double or the Knicks battling with a division leader and nearly pulling it out at the end? Whatever you think the answer is, one thing is for certain: if the Knicks can play like this against Cleveland, the second best team in the NBA, they’re good enough to sneak into the playoffs as the eighth seed.