The old saying goes “defense wins championships.”
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And the Golden State Warriors defense played championship-level defense during Game 4 of the NBA Finals. With their backs against the wall, the Warriors defended LeBron James differently than they have all series long and it paid off.
Defending LeBron James is a monumental task. Defending LeBron James is like trying to scale Mount Everest with one leg while licking your own elbow. Basically, defending LeBron James is very hard. And there’s no “right” way of doing it.
Of course, Twitter coaches of the world will tell you it’s simple. They’ll say “all you have to do to stop LeBron is (insert something that is easier said than done).” Remember math class when you would solve a problem on the exam in like 3 seconds? Yeah, it was cool that you finished it, but you knew that it was way too good to be true. Solving for x, y, and z wasn’t that simple. Guarding LeBron James is kind of like that. Except with the rest of the alphabet. And some numbers. And some hieroglyphics. And some–well, you get the point.
There was one advantage that Golden State seemed to have going into Game 1. James hadn’t shot the three ball particularly well. He had hit them at just 17% for the postseason. If there’s a shot that you would be somewhat content with James taking, it’s the long ball. James, though, is putting together an all-time great Finals performance. He’s shooting 35% for the series making the three an effective shot for him once again.
LeBron talking about how he doesn't want to be a high-volume, inefficient shooter, but that with two All-Stars out, he has no other choice.
— Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) June 10, 2015
In Game 1, the Warriors looked to let James get his and shut down all his teammates. And it worked, for the most part. Partly due to the fact that James wasn’t looking to pass. Perhaps he didn’t trust his teammates. The King wanted to take over from the beginning and took 38 shots in the process. He scored 44 points while dishing out “just” 6 assists.
Games 2 and 3 were even more incredible than the 44 point performance. James scored and, most importantly, was a willing passer. It seems as if he realized that, in order to win, he needed help. And the help came. James scored inside and out, posting up smaller defenders and blowing by slower ones. He ran the floor and shot nearly 42% from beyond the arc. He continued to shoot double-digit free throws. But James opened up his own shot even more by including his teammates early. He found Timofey Mozgov beating Andrew Bogut to a spot. He found a wide open Matthew Dellevadova or Iman Shumpert. He whipped passes across his body and across the court effortlessly.
Through the first three games, the Warriors seemed to be content with “letting” James score. I don’t know if they intended for him to score the most points by a player through the first three games of a Finals series in NBA history, but it happened. Leaving him in single coverage with Harrison Barnes or Draymond Green was fatal for the defense. It was only when Andre Iguodala would check in that James’ otherworldly powers would be slowed down. An elite defender, he’s the only player on the team–and maybe the league–that could truly effect James one-on-one.
Jun 11, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) controls the ball against Golden State Warriors guard
Stephen Curry(30) and guard
Klay Thompson(11) during the third quarter of game four of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
But going one-on-one with the greatest basketball player on the planet isn’t a recipe for success. So the Warriors adjusted. And it proved to be huge. First, the Warriors went small. A sneaky Kerr inserted Iguodala into the starting five in favor of Bogut before the tip-off. While it seemed to be a move primarily to jump-start the offense, it could only do that if it got defensive stops and ran in transition.
The experiment looked like it was failing right away as the Cavs got off to a 7-0 run. But once Golden State settled in, it was over. James finished Game 4 with a respectable 20 points on 7-22 shooting. He couldn’t get into a real rhythm all game. Iguodala, who logged just over 39 minutes, stuck to James wherever he went. When James decided to back down in the post, sometimes the double team would come and sometimes it wouldn’t. If it did, then he’d pass it out and the ball would move around the perimeter looking for the open shooter. More times than not, there wasn’t one as the rotations were quick and the closeouts were hard.
The Warriors were decisive with James. They gave him so many different looks with the double teams in the post and the single coverage on the perimeter. The Warriors were physical with the King. Bogut, who picked up 3 fouls in 3 minutes, got his money’s worth when he fouled James who landed, took a few steps, then sailed into a cameraman. Golden State tried to limit James’s easy looks throwing multiple defenders at him when they could.
Jun 11, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) handles the ball against Golden State Warriors guard Andre Iguodala (9) during the first quarter in game four of the NBA Finals at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Furthermore, the Warriors seemed to trick the Cavaliers. By going small with Barnes and Green in the frontcourt, the Dubs gave up a lot of size to the Cleveland trees. Many times, especially early on, the Cavs looked to post up their bigs for some reason. And sure, it worked a bit as Mozgov set a career high. But more touches in the post for average post players means less touches for LeBron James.
The defense was never really the issue for the best defensive team in the league. The Cavs’ reached 100 once (overtime loss in Game 1) and were held to 95 and 96 points in Games 2 and 3 respectively. The Warriors held Cleveland to just 32% shooting in the second game. The defense was good, but it wasn’t Warrior good. It wasn’t the chaotic poetry that we had grown accustomed to over the course of the season.
With Iguodala on the court, LeBron is shooting 35.3% from the field this series and is a -25
— Ethan Strauss (@SherwoodStrauss) June 12, 2015
In Game 4, the Cavs scored just 82. That poetry finally showed up and Iguodala was Robert Frost. The Dubs were causing turnovers and, most importantly, causing extreme discomfort for James and co. Even when Stephen Curry switched onto James, he was ineffective. The great irony is that Steve Kerr finally took a page out of David Blatt’s book. Everyone guards Curry and Thompson while allowing others to have wide open jumpers, essentially daring those individuals to beat them. The Warriors did that. They double and even triple teamed James, leaving shooters open. For just a second though. Then the defense recovered. And they denied entry passes and they stood their ground.
Defending LeBron James isn’t easy. And the Warriors have done it a little bit differently each game. All series long, people debated double teaming vs single coverage. And it looks like, without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, leaving shooters slightly open isn’t that bad. The Warriors should continue to sporadically double LeBron James, forcing the Cavalier role players to execute to perfection. And if they don’t, it’s off to the races for Golden State.