Two epic offenses will square off
Warriors, Cavaliers each can put up the points, but Cleveland’s defense a weak spot
OAKLAND — Finals week has arrived, but three more days of buildup still remain before Warriors-Cleveland Cavaliers, Act 3.
In advance, let’s take a deeper dive into the series and some of the factors that may decide the rubber match between these two on basketball’s biggest stage.
What differentiates them?
The Warriors had the league’s best offense this season, averaging 113.2 points per 100 possessions. They’ve upped that to an incredible 115.8 in their 12 playoff games, all wins. No other playoff team has an offensive efficiency rating within five points. Except the Cavaliers. Theirs is nearly five points better.
Cleveland scored at a historic rate during their avalanche through the East: 120.7
points per 100 possessions, up from 110.9 in the regular season. They’ve had at least 106 points in all 13 playoff games, 115 or more eight times and popped an otherwise solid Celtics defense for 130 and 135 in two East Finals games.
Their offense is steam rolling, which makes that side of the floor intriguing in these Finals. Because the Warriors defense, sturdy all season, has suffocated a trio of good offenses in the playoffs. They’ve trimmed two full points off their defensive rating — from 101.1 during the regular season, which was second best in the league, to 99.1, a number atypically small for this era.
So it’s great against great on one end and great against not so great on the other. The Warriors’ offensive machine is matched up against a Cleveland defense that sticks out as the sore-thumb unit in this otherwise incredible Finals battle. The Cavaliers gave up an ugly 108.0 points per 100 possessions this season. How bad is that? Only eight defenses in the entire league were worse — the Nets, Magic, Knicks, Timberwolves, Kings, Suns, Nuggets and Lakers — and none of them made the playoffs.
You figured some of that was due to natural midseason disinterest and once the playoff lights flicked on, they’d crank it up and perform. Which is partly true. Against the Pacers, Raptors and Celtics — the league’s 15th, 6th and 8th offenses this season — the Cavaliers have trimmed it down to a 104.6 defensive playoff rating, which is a bit better than league average. And that was more than enough for them to cruise through the East. But as they prepare to step in the ring with an offensive juggernaut, it’s a major concern.
What’s made Cleveland’s offense so good in these playoffs?
This is LeBron James’ 12th postseason. In them, he’s never averaged more playoff points than he is during this run: 32.5 per game, including a second-round series in which he became the first player ever to score 35 or more points in every game of a sweep.
He’s shooting 56.6 percent, a career playoff-best, and 42.1 percent from 3, also a career playoffbest. On this stage, he’s never been this efficient. And with the hub of their offense operating at a peak level, the rest of the Cavaliers have perfectly flanked themselves in the proper spots, bombed away from the outside with lethal accuracy and allowed Kyrie Irving to cook in the exact moments that it has made the most sense.
Kevin Love’s made 38 of his 80 playoff 3s. Kyle Korver’s made 22 of his 53. J.R. Smith’s made 22 of his 49. Channing Frye’s made 20 of his 38. Korver’s making low 40-percent, Smith’s in the mid 40s, Love’s in the high 40s and Frye’s above 50 percent. There has been no room or time or lineup for opponents to exhale. Everyone’s on at the right time.
The Warriors, you’d expect, will make things harder for Cleveland’s shooters. Not only will they tire them out on the other end — and likely force a few of those shooters off the court — but the Warriors prevent 3s better than any team in the league. This season, opponents only made 32.4 percent of their 3s against a long, active, rotating Warriors defense. That’s the second-stingiest of any team the past five seasons.
Sixteen is the magic number for the Cavaliers. They’re 19-3 this season when they plant 16 or more 3s, but the Warriors only gave up more than 14 3s in a game once this season. If Cleveland can nail somewhere in the low to mid-teens, these games and this series should be interesting. But if the Cavs go something like 9 of 34 (their number in a mid-January loss in Oracle) on the regular, it’s tough to see them staying with the Warriors.
Will the Warriors force the Cavaliers to rejigger their rotation?
Korver’s playing nearly 20 minutes a night off the Cavs bench in these playoffs, hitting multiple 3s in six different games. Frye’s also had his moments, including a five3 game against the Raptors. Both are important bench pieces. But both are defensive liabilities.
In the January matchup in Oracle, Korver entered the game and the Warriors attacked him relentlessly, forcing him to navigate through a trail of screens while trying to stay with Klay Thompson. The Cavaliers then tried to hide him on Andre Iguodala, but the Warriors happily turned to Iguodala and let him flip up the 2007 switch for a few aggressive possessions. Both strategies worked. Korver was a minus-12 in that game.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Cavaliers react to these moments in the first few games of the series. Can they extract the offensive punch of guys like Korver and Frye without exposing them too much to the Warriors’ lethal, loaded attack, where hiding spots are hard to find?
If Cleveland tilts its strategy more toward defense — upping the minutes of more versatile wings like Richard Jefferson and Iman Shumpert — that simplifies things for Golden State’s defense. Those are the mini pockets that Warrior coaches believe they can uncork JaVale McGee, plant him on a non-shooter like Jefferson and Shumpert, and hope, at least once or twice in the series, he can have one of those game-changing lobfilled sequences.
X-factor: Tristan Thompson’s rebounding
The Cavaliers were 1-1 against the Warriors this season. In their loss, they only created seven offensive rebounds and took three fewer shots. But in their win, they pulverized the Warriors interior, grabbed 18 offensive rebounds and produced 18 more shots than Golden State.
All season — along with bouts of careless turnovers — that’s been the Warriors’ primary weakness. When you mash them on the glass, they’re beatable. For the Cavaliers, that job primarily falls to Thompson. While others are either playmaking or shooting and spreading the floor, he barrels around the paint with high-level speed and power, exposing poor box-outs. In the Christmas game in Cleveland, he had six of those 18 offensive rebounds.
But during Cleveland’s loss in Oakland, Zaza Pachulia led a brigade of Warriors that muscled Thompson away and held him to five rebounds in 30 minutes. To start the game, Thompson will be Pachulia’s responsibility. But if the Warriors go smaller more in this series, as expected, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green’s defensive rebounding will be huge in this series.
Key matchup: Andre Iguodala guarding LeBron James
From Klay Thompson trying to contain Irving to Durant rebooting his Finals rivalry against James to Green trying to exploit Love, there are so many spicy matchups in this series. But Iguodala serving as the second wave of defense on LeBron feels like the showdown with the biggest potential variance.
If Iguodala’s sore knee affects him similarly to how his bothersome back sapped him of power late in last year’s Finals, LeBron is more free to produce a similarly stunning upset. But if Iguodala instead shakes off his recent playoff rust, arrives in Game 1 like the Iguodala we saw in March, then LeBron is staring at a tag-team of Durant, Draymond and spry Iguodala, which is about as good of a defensive wing trio as you could create to try to contain the league’s greatest player. Prediction Warriors in 6. The last two Finals have ended with road celebrations. I’ll guess this one will, too.