A few months ago, plenty of fans were predicting this year’s Western Conference Finals to be one of the best playoff series ever. Very few of them had the Thunder included. Regardless, here we are, with another Warriors vs. Cavaliers Finals looming after a seven-game odyssey between Golden State and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
This year, the Cavaliers are fully healthy with a much stronger supporting cast. They’ve just finished ripping apart the Eastern Conference with a historic run from beyond the three-point arc, going a total 12-2 en route to the finals while the Western teams brutalize each other. They have Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love; this is the matchup everyone missed out on last year. So, how do the Cavaliers stack up at full strength, and how should the Warriors approach the series?
Cleveland Cavaliers
There’s no way around it; the Cavaliers are an entirely new beast this year. They made a record-setting number of threes through two rounds, eviscerating both the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks. The Toronto Raptors showed some fight, but they went down too. The biggest factors in Cleveland’s postseason run this year are their dominance from beyond the arc and the distribution of LeBron James. The Cavaliers have been wildly efficient on catch and shoot opportunities this postseason, and a big part of it is the passing from James. Their shooters are finding themselves in perpetually advantageous positions, and they’re hitting the shots. When they swept Atlanta, Cleveland made 77 threes on 50.6% from beyond the arc. That being said, the engine that drives this team is LeBron (surprise). Irving isn’t the most dangerous passer on this team, and it’s not close.
LeBron James is probably the most intuitive passer in the history of basketball, maybe next to only Magic Johnson. His ability to crash the lane and score there is a massive part of what makes this team click. When he drives, he converts at a historically great rate, causing defenses to collapse. The Cavaliers have surrounded him with a bevy of anywhere-on-the-floor shooters, trusting in his ability to make every pass possible to them when defenses crash him at the rim (and he does make them). Many of these shooters don’t have his or Kyrie’s ability to create their own shot or facilitate, but he’s good enough at it that their entire job can just be to find their spot and be ready for the ball.
A special nod assessing this team has to go to Channing Frye, a midseason acquisition that’s opened up the floor for the Cavs in entirely new ways. He’s got legitimate center size, finishes well, and shoots from distance well. It allows the team to play really nasty five-out lineups where the smallest offensive threat outside of 15 feet is James, the greatest player of his generation. That’s a big problem. Frye has been stellar in the postseason, shooting a scorching 57.8% from deep on 3.5 attempts per game. The biggest Cleveland weakness is probably their defense; while not a bad team on that end, they have very identifiable weaknesses that can be exploited by other teams with the right pieces. Not only that, but their best offensive lineups require the presence of those defensive liabilities like Irving and Love. So, how does this all match up against the Warriors?
Golden State Warriors
The Warriors just became the 10th team ever to recover from a 1-3 deficit to win a series, and they did it against an absolutely terrifying Thunder team. Their size and athleticism gave Golden State fits, and pushed the defending Champions to the brink. The challenges with Cleveland will be very different. It’ll almost be like the Warriors are facing a bizarro version of themselves, a star engine surrounded with shooters and speed designed to run opponents off the floor. The keys in handling this Cavaliers team lie in the differences between this year and last year. Without Irving and Love, the Warriors had trouble when Cleveland rebuilt themselves as a grinder rather than another run and gun team, slowing the pace with James post-ups and pesky defense by Matthew Dellavedova on Stephen Curry. This series will be different. What the Warriors should pay attention to is what happened in the games that Toronto managed to win in the Eastern Conference Finals. In those games, they did all they could to hold LeBron outside of 12 feet. In both of those games, James took (and missed) more long shots than any other games in the playoffs. This allowed their defense to stay stretched out, reducing passing lanes and hamstringing the effectiveness of Cleveland’s shooters. James has had a historically bad shooting season, so if a defense can force him outward and partially neutralize his facilitation, it neuters the Cavaliers offense.
This is why (once again) Andrew Bogut and Andre Iguodala will be very important. Last year, James was a more significant threat outside the pain on offense. It’s those players’ jobs to do everything they can to make him struggle inside and force him to try to run the offense from the perimeter, where Cleveland will be less effective. Make no mistake, they’re still very good, but a massive component of their scoring is LeBron’s inside-out passing.
Another big part of winning the Finals for the Warriors is exploiting the defensive liabilities that Cleveland’s offensively potent lineups require. Simply put, the best scoring lineups that Cleveland rolls out feature Irving and Love, who are exploitable defenders. In a matchup that will see a lot of small-ball on small-ball competition, it’s paramount to look at the difference between the best Cavaliers small lineup and the Warriors’ “death lineup”. There’s a lot less defensive weakness in the Warriors when they go small, which gives them a potent advantage. There aren’t obvious pressure points to attack like there are with the Cavaliers. The Warriors’ small lineups should outmatch the Cavaliers’ because it’s likely they will attack Irving on the perimeter with Curry and Thompson, as well as Love on back cuts and the offensive post (he’s particularly bad off-ball).
The Warriors will also need to pay special attention to Frye; he’s a dangerous from range, and it could be trouble with him dragging Golden State’s big men towards the perimeter when LeBron will be looking to probe inside each game.
Verdict
The Cavaliers are a threat, there’s no doubt there. However, the Thunder were a much worse matchup. Length, athleticism, and lots of very effective off-ball defense almost won them the West; Cleveland, by comparison, looks built to try to beat the Warriors at their own game, something that typically does not go well. All in all, they have more identifiable attack points for Golden State to pursue than the Thunder did, and they’re not nearly the defensive team Oklahoma City was either. If they can force Cleveland to play outside-in rather than inside-out and put the facilitation burden on their secondary shooters, they should find themselves in a very comfortable place. However, LeBron is still LeBron, and there’s rest to factor in. The Cavs aren’t a pushover, but the Warriors seem to do everything better with less obvious weak points.
Prediction: Warriors in 6.