The Daily Dose: Dose: Dre Day

Steve Kerr didn’t win Coach of the Year for the 2014-15 season and Thursday night may have some voters regretting their decision to go with Mike Budenholzer. Kerr took a chance and moved Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup and bumped Andrew Bogut to the bench just minutes before the Game 4 tip. It worked.

The Warriors pushed the pace en route to a blowout 103-82 victory in Cleveland to tie the NBA Finals at 2-2. The series will shift to Oakland on Sunday for Game 5 with the spread for that game opening at Warriors minus-8.5.

Andre Iguodala was the story in his 39 minutes, scoring 22 points with eight rebounds, one steal and four 3-pointers on 8-of-15 shooting. The Cavs didn’t pay much attention to him on the perimeter while Iggy thrived in transition. As mentioned, the Warriors had some success with their starting unit from tonight in the previous games. Here’s a look at the efficiency ratings from the Game 1-3 starters compared to how the Game 4 starters fared in Game 1-3:

Kerr and his guys had to have this in mind and they used some up-tempo play to kick the game off. The Cavs started out with a 7-0 lead, but all of that running may have forced them to run out of gas late in the contest. Obviously, the Warriors will be starting the same unit on Sunday.

Andrew Bogut moved to the bench, playing just three minutes with no shots and three fouls. He might be a DNP-CD on Sunday, which is crazy for a guy who was in the running for Defensive Player of the Year this season. Another big-time, unheralded player was Shaun Livington, playing 25 minutes with seven points, eight rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block. He was outstanding in the post on both sides of the ball and he might take some minutes away from Harrison Barnes (14 points, eight rebounds, two blocks and two 3-pointers). Barnes played a lot better, but having Livingston out there as another ball handler will really help Stephen Curry.

Speaking of Curry, he had a solid game in the win, scoring 22 points with two rebounds, six assists, one steal and four 3-pointers. Curry was a little sloppy with the ball with four of his team’s seven turnovers. It’s still somewhat hard to believe the Warriors had a blowout without Curry or Klay Thompson (nine points, two rebounds, two assists and one bloc) going off. Draymond Green was effective at center, putting up a line of 17 points with seven rebounds, six assists, two steals, one block and one 3-pointer. He was in foul trouble for a bit, but he didn’t turn the ball over. Green also said after the game that he was going to play harder.

As for the Cavs, the big story after the game was LeBron James getting a cut on his head. He needed stitches, but he did not need to go through the protocol due to just receiving a cut on his head from running into a camera.

If you’ll indulge me for a minute, I’m totally fine with LeBron not getting a concussion test. Most of the time, I’d be all about it with a head injury and Klay Thompson not getting one after Trevor Ariza kneed him in the head was a bad mistake. However, there really wasn’t enough force from the collision (mass x acceleration) to cause a concussion for LeBron. It was really just a cut to the outside of his head from the sharp edge of the camera. Concussions aren’t going to happen like that.

As for the game, the Warriors doubled LeBron more often and kept him to 7-of-22 from the field for 20 points. He did flirt with a triple-double with 12 rebounds and eight assists. As much as LeBron struggled tonight, it wasn’t his fault.

The guards were horrendous. J.R. Smith (2-of-12 for four points), Matthew Dellavedova (3-of-14 from the field for 10 points) and Iman Shumpert (2-of-9 from the field for five points) all had their worst games of the NBA Finals. Simply put, they need to be a lot better. We all knew Delly was going to come back to Earth, but he was worse than expected tonight.

The bigs were very good, though. Timofey Mozgov had a career-high 28 points with 10 rebounds and one steal while Tristan Thompson double-doubled with 12 points, 13 rebounds and one block. The Warriors were fine with Mozzy and TT getting more usage while keeping LeBron in check. It would have been a lot better for GSW too, but Mozgov and Thompson each had six offensive rebounds. That continues to be a huge advantage for the Cavs and it’s hard to believe their frontcourt has stepped up since Kevin Love (shoulder) went down.

The Cavs are probably going to want to slow it down and get shots later in the shot clock, but that’s risky business based on the playoffs. In fact, they were the seventh-worst team in the postseason with field goal percentage late in the shot clock (4-7 second remaining) and fifth-worst when there were 0-4 seconds left. On the other hand, the Warriors were the eighth-best team late in the shot clock and the fifth best with 0-4 seconds left. Yes, it’s only out of 16 teams, but don’t forget the Warriors had to go through much tougher teams to get to the NBA Finals. That said, this is definitely the lesser of two evils because running up and down will cost them with their seven-man rotation. The point is the Warriors are really, really good and some folks were reminded of that on Thursday.

Sunday should be fun and the extra day off is huge for the Cavs. Still, Dub Nation has to feel good after this impressive win despite a slow start. Oh and they’re now 57-0 in games when they have a 15-point lead at any point. They also haven’t lost three games in a row since Nov. 23, 2013, including the preseason. So impressive.

Ghostface Ilya Going Platinum?

It’s not often we have a trade in June, but we actually had a very noteworthy trade on Thursday. The Pistons received Ersan Ilyasova in exchange for Shawne Williams and Caron Butler. Basically, it was just a salary dump.

The Bucks have struck gold at forward in their last two drafts with Jabari Parker and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Both have been playing a lot of power forward, so Ghostface Ilya became expendable. In the summer of 2012, Ilyasova and the Bucks agreed to a five-year, $40 million deal. Needless to say, the remaining 16-plus million remaining on his deal is almost the entire reason why this deal went down. Ilyasova battled numerous injuries and was one of the most inconsistent players in the NBA. In the 2013-14 season, Ilyasova unfathomably made just 28.2 percent from deep despite taking 131 attempts. His struggles continued in the beginning of the 2014-15 season, making a woeful 31.4 percent from deep with averages of 8.8 points, 3.5 boards, 0.7 assists, 0.5 steals and 0.3 blocks in just 17.5 minutes per game. He even slipped out of the rotation at times.

Even with almost two years of disastrous play, Ilyasova finally was able to figure it out after the break. He played 28.4 minutes per game in his final 28 games of the season, averaging 14.5 points, 6.2 boards, 1.3 assists, 0.8 steals, 0.3 blocks and 1.9 treys. He shockingly put up third-round value and was on a lot of championship head-to-head teams. Here’s his shot chart in that red-hot span:

It’s pretty obvious why coach Stan Van Gundy opted to go after Ghostface Ilya. He has the potential to be one of the best stretch fours in the league when he’s going strong. Before this year in Detroit, SVG’s teams have been launching treys. He still hasn’t really put in his recruiting class, so let’s look at how he handled things with the Magic earlier in his coaching career.

His Magic teams ranked first in the NBA for 3-pointers in every single season the entire time he was there. His team was also first in above-the break 3-pointers in that span, but of course the presence of Dwight Howard really opens things up for shooters. Andre Drummond is turning into a Dwight-like offensive weapon and maybe he makes another leap. Plus, Ersan is more of an above-the-break 3 guy, too. As far as SVG’s preferred play types, here’s a look at how his Magic teams got their shots in SVG’s last two seasons there (via Synergy):

Hopefully that’s not info overload. Breaking it down, the Magic had at least 22.2 percent of their shots come from spot-up shooting while they also had at least 21 percent of their points come in pick-and-roll. Those are two important areas for Ersan, especially the spot-up shooting. After the break, Ilyasova attempted 106 catch-and-shoot treys, which accounted for 89.1 percent of all of his triple attempts (13 pull-up 3-pointers).

SVG also had some very positive things to say about him. He said Ilyasova is “player we have coveted since we got to Detroit” during his press conference today. “Not only is he a proficient three-point shooter that can stretch the floor, he is a high-energy, hard-playing guy who fits extremely well with how we want to play,” Van Gundy added. “We are excited about what he can add to our team.”

All that said, you could say this is a perfect landing spot for him. He still has to shake off his inconsistency along with being very injury prone. For now, he’s a high-risk, high-reward player to take in the 60-80 range.

The Moose Is Loose

With the Pistons taking on Ghostface’s contract, that means Monroe is as good as gone. He’s an unrestricted free agent and plenty of teams will be after him. The Moose isn’t the en vogue power forward these days, so it’ll be interesting to see who antes up. Paul Millsap being more of a play-maker and a floor spacer suggests he’ll be more coveted than Monroe. We’ll address Monroe in the offseason when he makes his decision.

Keepin’ Khris

With the Bucks clearing out some money, we can assume Khris Middleton will be back with the Bucks next season. He was one of the most improved players for real plus/minus (RPM) last season and he absolutely exploded following the Jabari Parker injury. At the time of that injury, Jared Dudley was playing better than Middleton, but now Middleton has earned his minutes at both wing spots.

The biggest question coming to mind here is what happens to Middleton now with Jabari back? It turns out that Jabari, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Middleton played just 86 minutes together last season, which is only 3.3 percent of his minutes last season. Middleton also only had a 16.2 usage rate with his 48.0 true shooting percentage in that time — both way down compared to his season numbers. The breakout player is going to have to use his second-half surge and translate it to a Jabari-Giannis lineup.

The good news is that Middleton did perform well when he played shooting guard next to Giannis. With the other SGs off the court and Giannis on, Middleton had a 20.0 usage rate and a 55.4 true shooting percentage. We should be giving Middleton the benefit of the doubt to play SG.

So where do you draft him? It’s a tough one. In the 2015 part of the season, Middleton put up No. 13 value in standard leagues. Obviously, there’s really no way you can take him there and I’d still be a little worried about taking him in the top 30. After that, he makes sense.

P.F. Parker

With Ersan gone, the Bucks are certainly going to be giving Parker more minutes at power forward. It seems like so long ago, but Jabari was really starting to play well before his ACL tear. In his last seven games before the injury, the rookie averaged 15.0 points, 5.0 boards, 2.3 assists, 1.1 steals and 3.1 turnovers. Here’s a look at his shot chart in that span:

Holy restricted area. He almost had half of his shots come from within three feet. Parker had three of his 73 shots come from beyond 19 feet, too. While he’s only listed at 6’8, the Bucks clearly see him as a PF like he was in college.

As promising as this sounds, it’s tough to draft Parker following his ACL tear. Unless he slips, he won’t be a target of mine as it stands right now.

John Henson and Zaza Pachulia aren’t really affected too much here. They’ll split the center minutes again. Giannis is still going to be a monster and has some of the highest upside of any player under 22.

The Other Andre

Andre Drummond also gets a nice little boost with Ilyasova in the fold. He should have more room to operate and have more room on his PNRs. After a really slow start last season, Drummond finished strong after the break with averages 16.1 points, 14.7 boards, 2.1 blocks and 0.7 steals on 53.6 percent from the field. He could definitely be an 18-15-2.5 guy next season. Although, the Pistons really need to add some depth because they’re in deep trouble if Dre gets in foul.

This should also help Brandon Jennings and Reggie Jackson. The interesting thing to remember is that both guys were playing well at the end of their seasons. R-Jax should be back, so it’ll be a fun position battle. It won’t be long until SVG has his fingerprints all over his roster.

Enjoy the weekend!

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

Sharing is caring! Share this FreeWinningPicks post with your friends!