The Cavs Are Going to Miss Harrison Barnes in the NBA Finals
LeBron James is going to have to work extremely hard on both ends if his team is going to have a chance
The NBA Finals will begin on Thursday, as the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors will meet for the third straight season in the league’s championship series.
The Warriors won the 2015 championship in six games thanks to the injuries of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. However, Golden Sate’s small ball lineup of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, and Draymond Green allowed them to win three straight games to close out the series.
Cleveland won their first title in franchise history by coming back from a 3–1 series deficit in 2016. A questionable suspension of Green and an injured Curry kept the Warriors from closing out the Cavs.
This time around, nobody is injured and both teams are playing at an incredibly high level. But there’s one major difference. The Warriors replaced Harrison Barnes with Kevin Durant. While this benefits the Warriors for obvious talent reasons, there is a far more subtle reason why this will be such a problem for Cleveland — especially LeBron James.
The Cavs are going to miss Barnes in this series. More so, James is going to miss Barnes because I see him as the key for James’ two-way dominance in the two finals he has faced the Warriors.
Barnes is a good NBA player. He averaged 19.2 points for the Mavericks this season primarily due to being given more offensive responsibility. However Barnes is nowhere near the level that James is, and is a relatively easy match up for him.
If you watch the tape from last year’s finals, James was seemingly able to rest on defense with Barnes sitting in the corners waiting for three point opportunities. James was able to read passing lanes and help on drives without a ton of worry that Barnes was going to make him pay for it by scoring the ball. James averaged a team high 2.6 steals and 2.2 blocks in the finals last year, which are stats that come with solid help defense.
In the finals last year, Barnes averaged nine points while shooting a mediocre 31% from three. With James being able to catch his breath on defense in select areas of the game, he was able to do extraordinary things on the offensive end. He averaged 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds and 8.9 assists last year, running away with the MVP Award for the series.
During the comeback from being down 3–1, James was able to take the defensive assignment of guarding Curry during key stretches of games. This was an absolute nightmare for the Warriors. James was able to chill on defense when matched up with Barnes, carve them up because he wasn’t exhausted, and turn around and lock down Golden State’s best player in big spots. Since Barnes wasn’t doing anything on offense, Cleveland could hide Kyrie Irving or J.R. Smith on Barnes and not worry about it.
Now put Durant in Barnes’ place in the same scope. Durant is probably the best scorer in the NBA in terms of pure ability. There won’t be a break for James on defense since he’ll have to deal with Durant every time down the court.
If he tries to defend Green, McGee, or Pachulia at points, he’ll be forcing teammates like Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, Irving, or Smith to take on the near impossible assignment of guarding Durant. Let’s not forget that the Cavs were the 22nd ranked defensive team in the league this season because they lacked good individual defenders outside of James.
James will need to guard Durant at all times, which means he won’t be able to guard Curry in key stretches. If I was a betting man, I wouldn’t put my money on Irving and Smith being able to contain the Splash Brothers over the course of the series.
Also, James being able to take a break while guarding Barnes helped him stay fresh on offense. Now he’ll have to play just as hard on both ends, as he tries to score against the best defense in the NBA during the playoffs.
Hiding James on Barnes wasn’t because James isn’t a good defender, but because he is good enough on help defense to be effective and conserve energy for offense. In a series where the Cavs will most likely need a version of James that was even better than last year, giving him more of a load to shoulder probably isn’t the best combination.
If I’m the Warriors I make sure to keep James working on both ends, and exploit the match ups in the back court since he can’t help as much out there. I’d even use players like Pachulia and McGee more to make sure that James absolutely has to stick to Durant. Barnes left the Warriors last summer, and it’ll be the Cavs that miss him the most — not his former team.
