Baconbacon's finals preview part 2

In part 1 I presented the the playoff performance comparison for the two teams. I admit that it was biased by a simple decision, to use the Cavs regular season production for their base when adjusting for the strength of the Warriors opposition, which caused the outcome to understate the postseason strength of that team. This all works out because now we are going to talk the specific matchup between these two teams.

The most important, but almost never mentioned, part of last year’s finals is that the Warriors top players got beat badly when they were on the court. As a group the top six of Iggy/Curry/Klay/Dray/Bogut/Barnes were a combined -65 for the series. It gets worse if we just take the starters for each game (with Ezeli starting game 7, and Iggy starting 5 and 6) the net result is -131.

What kept the series close, from a total points perspective, was the bench of Livingston/Barbosa/Varejoa/Speights/Rush combining for +76 (adding in Ezeli brings it down to +52). None of this is to suggest that Barbosa and Rush are better than Klay/Iggy, but it supports the conclusion that the advantage that GSW took into last year’s finals was their bench unit vs the Cleveland bench unit. The effect is even more pronounced if you divide Igoudala’s starts (-28) and his off the bench work (+57).

Obviously some things have changed. GSW swapped out its best bench depth to upgrade from Barnes to Durant, while the Cavs managed to pick up Deron Williams and Kyle Korver who have already fit into the offense well, and Derrick Williams who played well in limited mins with Lebron, but hasn’t made it off the bench for real playoff time yet.

The Warriors depth scramble is most apparent at the C position, while a year ago they already had Bogut as a starter in name only averaging ~17 mpg, this year it is even more pronounced with Zaza getting under 15 mpg in 10 playoff games, and only one player outside of their top 5 is averaging more than 15 mpg, which is Shaun Livingston squeaking out 16.1.

The result of the revolving door at C in which Zaza, West and McGee are averaging between 10 and 15 mpg is that has been open season for scoring wings. In the first round Damian and C.J. combined for 50/10/4 a game on 53% TS, Hayward put up 25/4/4 on 56% TS, Manu averaged 14/3 on 67% in just 20 mpg, and in the 24 mins Kawhi was healthy he had already gone for 26/8/3 on 73% TS.

So far in the playoffs Lebron and Kyrie are combining for 57/10/12 on 62% TS, which means the first major weakness of GSW defensively lines up with exactly how the Cavs want to attack.

Their second (and only other) major defensive issue is their defensive rebounding rate. 29th in dreb% during the regular season they shored it up during the first two series before getting hammered on the Glass by a big Spurs team. Those first two series featured teams starting 4 wings and a C, or in Portland’s case a "C", for the most part, while the Spurs were running two traditional bigs as often as they could. San Antonio averaged almost 16 offensive rebounds a game with those lineups, and Cleveland will look to replicate that success as they will be starting two excellent rebounders in Love and TT.

TT is an excellent example of how the Cavs offense manages to function at such a high level. Boston discovered what happens to your team when you give up 6 orebs and 20 efficient points to the Cavs C in game 1 of the ECF. They couldn’t help but look at the 13 point difference and not conclude that they could stop Thompson and close a large part of that gap. Stop them they did in game 2, where TT had as many TOs (2) as total rebounds and his +/- was the lowest of the Cavs starting 5. Final margin of victory for the Cavs? 44. The lesson is a confusing one, as you both cannot let one of Cleveland’s role players go off in that way, but you also cannot commit resources to stopping them.

To an extent this explains the Al Horford effect. Horford is a quality NBA player, who has been a part of quality NBA teams that have gone up against Lebron in the postseason. Those teams won 60, 53, 48 and 47 games, and in playoffs they are 1-16 against Lebron led teams. Al’s inability to dominate any one facet of the game prevents his teams from doing anything with him as one of their best players. He needs more help than an average playoff C boxing out, can’t shut down opposing scorers at the rim and can’t consistently punish the opposition for going small.

Role players like TT being able to demand attention is the big difference between a good to great offense for Cleveland and the historically great playoff run that they have had to date. It isn't just Thompson though, Korver also is making it virtually impossible to pay the correct amount of attention to him. The link is a highlight video from game 4 vs the Raptors, at 53 seconds in you see Lebron setting a screen for Korver and two Raptors attempt the close out leaving Lebron open for the easiest points of the game. The very next highlight is the same pick set by Lebron, only this time Derozen plasters himself to Lebron to prevent the easy roll, and Korver gets a wide open look for 3.

This was not achieved against poor defenses either. The Raptors were 11th in the league in defensive rating, which is a solid place to be, but after the acquisition of PJ Tucker and Serge Ibaka their rating would have been good enough for 5th in the league had it occurred across the entire season. The Celtics were 14th in the league, but over the past two seasons without Isaiah Thomas on the floor they had a drtg of 103.5, which would be good for 2nd in the league over that span and roughly half a point better than GSW’s D in either of the past two years. In the three games against that Celtics D without IT playing the Cavs put up ortgs of 119, 124 and 136.

Lebron setting a pick for Korver is simply an extension of the Kyrie/Lebron PnR that the Cavs worked so hard last year in the finals. Lebron is in position to set a pick in either direction, for Korver coming out of the corner or for his PG (Deron in one highlight, Kyrie in the other), and this is how I expect the Cavs to attack the Warriors D when Curry is on the floor. A year ago the Warriors were forced to move Curry around in an effort to prevent the Cavs from targeting him offensively. Putting him in the corner on JR or Shump was a way to do this, and just live with the occasional 3 pt shot that came out of it.

The natural way for the Warriors to defend this motion would be for Lebron’s man to step up and out into Korver’s shooting zone for the contest but that would leave Curry on Lebron without position just a few steps out of the paint. That is a no-no. The next option is for Curry to chase over the pick, against one of the best shooters in NBA history, and around a 260lb Lebron Pick. This also is not a positive outcome. The 3rd choice is a funky switch defense where Lebron’s man steps up to challenge Korver’s shot, Curry quickly fronts James to deny an easy roll pass and the C for the Warriors rotates in from the weakside to defend the post while while Curry scrambles to find the next man to put a body on.

The Warriors have the personnel to do this type of scrambling. Igoudala/Durant/Thompson are good enough on ball defenders to prevent Kyrie/Deron from getting an easy layup every time that the C jumps out to defend James, and Green is quick enough to get there and strong enough in the post to handle him once he does. There are still innumerable problems, and it gets even more complicated if any of GSW’s lesser defenders (Pachulia, McCaw, West) are on the court.

The variations on this action are practically innumerable. TT can run the screen on the other side of the court setting up the same situation where Curry is now either chasing Korver on his own or responsible for boxing out TT once the shot goes up, this is also a no-no.

This is a basic view of how the Cavs should be attacking the Warriors in the finals, part 3 will cover the defensive sets and their ability to slow down their opposition.