Can’t Level the Playing Field? Change It.
This is an analogy. It will be long. But I swear, it’ll pay off.
When I was in middle school, I was, by my estimation, somewhere between the 5th and 8th best mathlete in the state of North Carolina. I could wipe the floor with lesser mathletes, and I could hang with the elite, but in the end, barring something short of miraculous, I’d be outclassed. In short, I was like the Cleveland Cavaliers, very good to great at the “sport” I was playing, but not good enough to place first in any of the math competitions. So, despite my frustrations and hard work to improve, I realized quickly that I couldn’t compete with the Jon Woos and Isiah Kramers of the world. Those are fake names, by the way.
So, what did I do? In high school, I noticed that those Jon Woos and Isiah Kramers were also showing up to research competitions, as well. So, instead of trying to beat them at their own game (contest math), I decided to work to beat them at another game, one that we both didn’t have too much experience with.
That’s exactly what the Cavs have to do in the Finals, in order to have any chance of winning a couple games in this series. They could hardly hang around with the Warriors last year, when Steph Curry was allegedly on a bum leg, Andre Iguodala blew out his back, and Kevin Durant looked a lot like Harrison Barnes. They can’t afford to try and play pace-and-space and pretty basketball for another game just to see that they can hang.
Most of the Cavaliers issues boils down to leveling the number of shots each team gets. It’s as simple as that. In Game 1, the Warriors shot 20 more field goals, entirely due to the 20 to 4 turnover disadvantage the Cavs suffered. That turnover difference also led to a 27 to 9 discrepancy in fast break points and 21 to 6 difference in points off turnovers. The other issue the Cavs faced was that they couldn’t dominate the Warriors on the boards, only out-rebounding them by 7 and being entirely even on the offensive side.
Stupid analogies and tired takes aside, there are some adjustments the Cavs make to perhaps flip the matchup in Game 2.
1. Pull Tristan Thompson off Draymond Green.
This is a no-brainer. I don’t have tape to show from the first 24 minutes of Warriors-Spurs Western Conference Finals, but the Spurs, when they went small, junked up the Warriors offense by sticking a guard, like Danny Green, on Draymond Green. What that did, for them, at least, was neutralize some of Green’s perimeter skills. The downside is that Green could pound the other Green in the post, but the Warriors definitely don’t want that kind of action to bog down their offense.
The Cavaliers probably need to play both their bigs to junk up the game in their favor, and the normal defensive matchups are to put Tristan Thompson on Green and let Love guard whoever the fifth Warrior is. Thompson is the more versatile defender, and his on-ball defensive ability can be helpful on Green.
However, Thompson’s best defensive attribute is that he’s a better perimeter defender than Love and that he’s incredible at boxing out
But what really is Green’s point on offense? It’s to facilitate, bomb open three pointers, make solid (often illegal) screens, and maybe, once or twice a game, utilize a position to back down a weaker defender. There’s really nothing Thompson can do to neutralize the first three of Green’s uses on offense. Love can do that.
If the Cavs pull Thompson onto the fifth Warrior, be it Pachulia, McGee, Iguodala, or Livingston, Thompson can hedge on that fifth to score and play help defense on the inevitable pick-and-roll switch the Warriors will create with Love. But with Thompson boxing out Pachulia and McGee, who accounted for 5 offensive rebounds and many other tipouts, Cleveland can limit the second shot opportunities that killed them.
This is a trivial example of what I’m talking about. Durant bombs a transition three, but Thompson is busy covering Green for a trailer three. Love, who matched up with his cover, Pachulia, in transition, struggles to box out Pachulia. Thompson, whose sole job is to box out and make hustle plays, could flip plays similar to that one.
2. Make Durant score over other perimeter players.
Durant threw up 38 on 14 out of 26 shooting, with 3 threes and 2 long twos, only 2 of which were contested. All of Durant’s misses were on jump shots. It’s a little stupid to say that the best way to guard Durant is to make him a jump shooting scorer with the ball in his hands because he’s a lethal jump shooter. But when he has a traditional big, like Love or Thompson on him, it gives him the added ability to blow by him. But a perimeter defender, someone who’s name isn’t Love or Thompson, is more likely to force Durant, when he’s in isolation, into a pull-up or a post-up.
A pull-up jumper from Durant is an efficient shot, but it’s less efficient than him at the rim. The post-up is truly inefficient for Durant, only converting at 0.89 points per possession in the regular season. In comparison, Harrison Barnes average 0.99 points per possession on post-ups in the regular season. Look at this 1–3 screen-and-roll action with Curry and Durant. Durant gets the switch onto the much smaller Irving and backs him into the post. Shumpert, wary of the Durant post-up, comes off Livingston, who is lurking around in the paint, exactly where Livingston wants to be in order to score. Durant makes the easy play for the easy score.
The Cavs would have been better serves to force Durant to kill seconds posting up and shoot a fadeaway over Kyrie.
This being said, it’s easier said than done to prevent Durant from drawing a big man off a screen. Fighting over screens to stay with Durant on curls and quick switch-backs may be the sort of gamble that the Cavs need to try in the Game 2.
Enough about the defense. Most of the Warriors’ easy baskets came off straight lapses in assignments: missed backdoors by LeBron and Kyrie, J.R. Smith doing J.R. Smith things, etc. The good news is that the Warriors were able to stay with and contest all of Klay Thompson’s three point attempts and limit Green’s facilitation. The idea may be to let one of Durant or Curry get his scoring numbers and hold everyone else in check.
Now, on to the offense.
3. Limit the number of possessions and run exclusive pick-and-rolls involving LeBron, Kyrie, and Love.
The Cavs are a pace-and-space team, but the Warriors are a better one. There’s no way that they can try to run with and bomb threes with the Warriors and expect to pull out 4 wins out of 6.
In the playoffs, the Warriors have the second most efficient scoring out of pick-and-roll situations, averaging 1.21 points per possession when the roll man shoots (which is mostly the case for them). Focusing most of the defense’s attention at the two players involved in the screen game will open up the shooters around them. Hopefully, with a simpler offense, the turnovers will decrease and shooters like Korver and Smith will start to hit.
4. Add more player movement around LeBron and Kyrie’s drives.
In the first quarter, LeBron continually put his head down and drove to the basket, sometimes missing his finishes, but he drew fouls en route to 10 first quarter free throw attempts.
After the first quarter, LeBron started driving and playing as a playmaker from the post. That’s when he started turning the ball over and finding shooter who weren’t quite open in their spots.
Let’s go to the tape again. LeBron gets a defensive rebound and comes down the right side of the floor in an obvious isolation set against Iguodala. He’s got Korver in the corner, Jefferson on the top of the arc, and Love and Deron Williams on weakside wing. LeBron backs down aimlessly, and there’s no movement. Literally, during those five seconds of LeBron backing down and trying to spin, the other four players aren’t running any kind of screen action to get Love or Korver open for the pass out. The other Warriors defenders can literally stand around, near their covers and anticipate the kick out. Add in the fact that Jefferson is a 33% three point shooter and a pass out from under the basket to the top of the key is pretty difficult, and Green can easily duck in and throw his limbs into LeBron for a forced turnover.
Same exact deal here. There’s no movement around the James post-up, which takes away the safety valves he needs to be successful as a scorer and playmaker. The play ends in a foul, but with an off-ball screen by Thompson to get Love open for a jump shot, the play could’ve resulted in definite points.
Reviewing the tape after watching the onslaught live actually gives me hope as someone admittedly rooting for the Cavs. Other than a few missed layups and one open Klay Thompson three pointer, the Warriors couldn’t really play any much better on either side of the ball. If the Cavaliers can slow the pace down, junk up their offense with isolations with player movement around it, and switch around their defensive assignments, they can convert Sunday’s game into something from the early 2000s, a playing style that neither team has much experience in executing. And maybe, by changing the playing field, they can keep Game 2 much closer than Game 1.
