Cuomo was the first governor to call it like it is and call Trump an incompetent imbecile.
The hospitals were blown past capacity and he issued an advisory about the CDC guidelines. The nursing homes were only supposed to accept those they could adequately care for. This all happened after the peak of the virus, and the vast majority of the deaths had already occurred. The driving force behind the spread, as always, was the care workers. This has been proven, care workers were moving between nursing homes and were by far the major vector.
He should have created an alternate facility for those recovering from the virus and not sent them him, but if the guidelines had been followed, this wouldn't have happened. Facilities unable to isolate patients would have been turned them back, as per the guidelines. After the fact the nursing homes said they didn't think they had a choice, which could only be true if they didn't actually read the guidelines.
My mother is going through something like this right now. Two care workers just tested positive, I'm not going to sleep until I know if it's spread or if she's safe. She's in incredibly bad health, we can't care for her at home, and the highest percentage chance of her catching the virus is a hospital. Every time she goes they tell her this.
Cuomo rose as a champion of the left and wasn't afraid to duke it out with Trump, so of course he has a lot of enemies who are only going to want to talk about that mistake, which in hindsight was a big one. I'm betting a lot of governors would have done exactly the same thing but he was the first one in that spot, and everyone learned from the mistake.
I'm not naive and at the end of the day he's a politician and he's milked his role for all it's worth, but all things considered he's done a good job and has been a voice of reason in an insane time.