Playoff Daily Dose: Dose: Cavs Preview
It’s really easy to get caught up in offense in the NBA world. Teams win games with points while we track assists, efficiency and several stats on the box score. Most hardcore fans and even NBA writers don’t really quantify players outside of the stats on the box scores. Hey, DeAndre Jordan even won First Team All-NBA because most people saw his rebounding numbers despite him being a mediocre defender and only scoring 1.0 unassisted field goal makes per game during the season.
On the surface, it makes sense that the Cavs would be in a better spot for The Finals this time around with Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving healthy. LeBron James has even said Kyrie was hurt for most of the playoffs last year before he suffered a patella fracture in Game 1 against the Warriors. Plus, Kevin Love was out since the first round because Kelly Olynyk messed up his arm.
It’s not that simple, though. Yes, Love and Kyrie are two of the better players on the offensive side for their positions, but they’re also two of the worst players at their positions on the defensive end. Let’s take a look at the Cavs players heading into this championship series.
As much as we’d like to think the Cavs have a lot of factors to win, it’s really all about LeBron James. He’s played 38 minutes per game in these playoffs and it probably would’ve been closer to 40 without the garbage time factor. James has 7.0 dimes per game to go with his 29.0 usage rate and 60.0 true shooting percentage. As impressive as the Warriors were at times, he’s been the best player this postseason.
The Warriors are certainly going to do all they can to stop LeBron. Unlike the Raptors, the Warriors have two terrific defenders in Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala. It is almost certainly going to be Iguodala sticking LeBron for most of the series after his play last year and against Kevin Durant last round. If LeBron has a great series, he’s likely looking at his third title. If not, the Cavs are in trouble.
Besides LeBron, there is a lot of pressure on Kevin Love for this series. He was almost unplayable during the regular season with the Dubs going at him relentlessly. According to SportVU, Love was the defender on 26 field goal attempts in his 61 minutes. The Warriors really beat up on him in their blowout win on Jan. 18, which was when everyone started piling on Love. He’s essentially Enes Kanter in this series and that’s troubling news for the rotation. Kanter played just 8.8 minutes per game in the final four games of his postseason due to how the Warriors targeted him. Love won’t be at that level, but his playing time is certainly in jeopardy during a close game. If the Cavs are losing by 7-10 points, Love should still be out there for his 3-point presence. If the Cavs are up, they will likely go small to defend the 3-point line.
Kyrie Irving is another guy in a tough defensive spot. He really struggled against Kyle Lowry in isolation late in the Toronto series, so now it certainly won’t get any easier. Stephen Curry was awesome in his isolation plays late in the OKC series, and he went off in the last game against the Cavs this season. Curry scored 35 points on an 88.6 true shooting percentage with only one turnover. That is prettay, prettay efficient.
The Cavs are really going to have to find a way to hide Irving and Kevin Love in this series. The problem is that there is only one Harrison Barnes on the Warriors while Draymond Green should have a field day. Would coach Tyronn Lue dare put LeBron James on Draymond Green to cut down on the playmaking and make it easier on switches? It makes a lot more sense to defend the Steph-Dray pick-and-roll with LeBron next to either Kyrie or J.R. Smith. The Thunder sort of got a leg up in the series because they neutralized that play with all their length, but the Warriors made an adjustment to get Steph the ball in different plays. If they really want to make stopping that play a priority, they might want to put Kyrie on Klay Thompson with Smith on Curry.
Speaking of Smith, Lue has been praising him all postseason for his defensive effort. He even called him the team’s best defender. Smith really got carved up in the Raptors series against DeMar DeRozan, though. The Raptors were taking contested shots for almost the entire series, but the Warriors off-ball plays will make it really tough for the Cavs to get bodies on their shooters. It’s a tall order to defend the Warriors with all of their spacing, especially when they go small. Smith getting benched on occasion does show that Lue has lost a little trust in him.
Tristan Thompson sort of had his coming out party last postseason. He played 40.8 minutes per game in The Finals last year with averages of 10.0 points, 13.0 boards, 1.0 blocks and 0.7 steals. The Warriors really opened up their offense due to getting into the paint, so they will need Thompson to step up.
An interesting side of this is Timofey Mozgov. Among the players seeing time in all six games of The Finals last year, Mozgov actually led the team in net rating in his 28.3 minutes per game. He has aged quite a bit this year and turns 30 next month. Plus, he played a grand total of 50 minutes in these playoffs. Coach Tyronn Lue probably doesn’t want to play him unless his team gets shredded or Thompson is in foul trouble.
Channing Frye was the surprise of the last couple rounds. He even took minutes from Kevin Love thanks to his incredible 82.1 true shooting percentage in these playoffs. That said, Frye made his money against the Raptors. Yes, this same Raptors team counting on Patrick Patterson and Luis Scola for their power forward minutes. Expect to see Frye take a big step back this series because Draymond should eat him alive.
News and Notes from Tuesday
It was a fairly dead day on the news.
Joel Embiid announced on his Instagram account that he’s fully healthy. We’ve seen some videos of him doing some post work, but there really hasn’t been much contact. It’s still too soon to figure out where he stands, but the 76ers probably can’t roll him out there for more than 27 minutes per game.
Bismack Biyombo said he would be open to signing with the Raptors at a hometown discount. Some reports say Biz could hit around $17 million per year, but that seems like a stretch. That’s especially true after Biyombo struggled later in the series because of his troubles against stretch fives. He wouldn’t have much value in fantasy with the Raptors behind Jonas Valanciunas.
In case you missed it, I covered the Warriors side of things in the Tuesday afternoon column. Also, Steve Alexander and I covered the Warriors in Tuesday’s podcast.
