CLEVELAND — It was a beautiful day downtown, perfect for a lunchtime walk, ideal for Roland St. James to take his ham and cheese hero to the steps of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Public Square. He wore a Cleveland Browns windbreaker and a Guardians cap. He opened up his phone, where a ticket for the Cavaliers-Knicks playoff opener Saturday was sitting in his electronic wallet. 

“We gave the Yankees all they wanted last year,” St. James said. “And the Jets … man, they ruined our season last year, we just gave away the game.” 

He laughed. In his hands was a rolled-up edition of the Plain Dealer newspaper (“When I’m eating my lunch, I still like reading the real thing,” he said, “and not stare at my phone which I do the rest of the day.”), which he slammed against his other hand for emphasis. 

“We owe you all one, man, ” Roland St. James said. “Cavs in five! Maybe six. Let’s say six.” 

Cleveland is ready. For the first time since LeBron James took the city on its first championship climb in nearly 50 years, it has a basketball team around which it can rally. If the Bucks, Celtics and 76ers are the consensus Big 3 in the East, the Cavs are the clear pick as Best of the Rest, with a damn good shot chance to make one of them sweat. 

First, though, they will face a team that believes it has that kind of puncher’s chance, too. Late Saturday afternoon, the Knicks will step on the floor and it will be electric inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. The wattage will be similarly fierce in the various saloons, dens and living rooms back in New York that have waited for a big-game Saturday night from the Knicks. Saturday, they will get that. 

Saturday, the Cavs will find out how their jaw holds up to the Knicks, who aren’t just happy to be here and won’t be content merely taking a brief victory lap through the playoffs. 

“You’re ready to get going,” Jalen Brunson said earlier this week. “Definitely. Watching some of these teams play [in the play-in games], how intense it’s been, you’re itching to get out there and play.” 

The NBA season can seem like an endless maze to nowhere, right up until the playoffs open a new door and present a fresh series of opportunities. The Knicks spent much of this season drawing praise for their effort, their grittiness and the way they genuinely seem to enjoy playing basketball with one another. It was commendation earned on merit. 

But this won’t be a house-money series for the Knicks, and you won’t find one of them who hints it will be. Affirmation awaits if they can get to four wins before the Cavs do. Cleveland was the better team across the full 82, four full games better. But the Knicks did win three of the four times they played. In today’s NBA that matters less than ever, because it feels like somebody is always missing for some team on any given night. The Cavs do look like the better team. 

The Knicks will show up anyway. 

“I think the big thing is the defense, the rebounding, taking care of the ball,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You want to be low turnover. We’ve got to play tough. We’ve got to play smart, and we’ve got to play together. You can’t do it individually. You have to do it collectively.” 

That’s especially true if Julius Randle can’t go, but it’s important even if he does try to channel Willis Reed and give his bum ankle a crack at Game 1. Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell is the best player in this series. Darius Garland is a joy to watch, and it’s scary to see how good Evan Mobley already is, at 21, and how good he’s going to be. The Cavs will be a bear to keep up with even if the Knicks have a full roster. 

But the Knicks have proven they can be pains in the posterior as well. They collected an awful lot of wins this year against elite teams. It gives you belief, if you are a Knicks fan, that they really can walk into Cleveland on Saturday or Tuesday and win the necessary road game that will get the attention of everyone — Mitchell, Garland, Roland St. James. 

“This is what you live for,” Knicks guard Quentin Grimes said. “You want to have those challenges thrown your way.” 

Consider it thrown. The Cavaliers will be waiting for them. Cleveland will be ready, hunting vengeance for years of New York as its overlord. Fun series? Yeah. It’s going to be something. Six o’clock can’t get here fast enough.