Cavaliers vs. Warriors: Analysis, Predictions for NBA Finals Game 5
The Golden State Warriors went small to win big in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
The question now becomes whether that changed the complexion of one contest or the entire series at large.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr gave Andre Iguodala his first start of the season Thursday, and the 31-year-old responded with a season-high 22 points. MVP Stephen Curry also poured in 22 points, Draymond Green added 17 points, seven rebounds and six assists, and the Warriors reclaimed home-court advantage with a 103-82 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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With injuries having thinned Cleveland's rotation down to seven players, the team looked gassed. LeBron James had more shots (22) than points (20) for the first time since May 14. The Cavs converted only 33 percent of their field-goal attempts and just 14.8 percent of their three-point tries.
As the series shifts back to Oakland for Sunday's Game 5, the Cavs need to adjust. Can this depleted team regroup in time to save its season, or have the Warriors found the key to giving theirs a golden ending?
| 5 | Sunday | June 14 | 8 p.m. ET | Oakland | ABC |
| 6 | Tuesday | June 16 | 9 p.m. ET | Cleveland | ABC |
| 7* | Friday | June 19 | 9 p.m. ET | Oakland | ABC |
Key Storylines
Can Cleveland Make Its Size Advantage Matter?
Kerr made the first major chess move of the series, and it resulted in a wider margin of victory (21 points) than the first three games combined (15).
Typically, this is the time for the opposing coach to realign his side of the board and alter his strategic approach. But with the Cavs so woefully short on usable bodies—only six healthy players have averaged more than 17 minutes per game in the series—head coach David Blatt may not have that option.
Going smaller isn't a viable one. Mike Miller and Shawn Marion have played a total of 76 minutes in Cleveland's 18 postseason games. Not to mention, that's the style Golden State wants to play.
If the Cavs are going to stay big, they need to use that size to help collapse the Dubs defense and regain control of the tempo.
"We are going to make them pay," Tristan Thompson said, via Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Fedor. "I'm going to hit the glass. I'm not going to stop. We're going to put pressure on their guards that are trying to box us out."
Thompson and Timofey Mozgov combined for 40 points and 23 rebounds in Game 4, but they were vulnerable at the defensive end against smaller, quicker players. The Warriors had their best game in terms of both turnovers (seven) and three-point shooting (40 percent) in this series.
If Cleveland's shooters can't heat up and Golden State continues to focus on slowing down James, the Cavs' bigs must be difference-makers on both sides of the ball.
Are the Real Warriors Here to Stay?
For the first time in the Finals, the Warriors looked like themselves in Game 4.
They played with a sense of urgency that had been absent for most of the first three contests. They relentlessly attacked off misses and makes. They flew around the floor, corralling the 50-50 balls that had gotten away from them earlier this series.
"I think if we played as hard as we were playing the last couple of games, it would have won us probably 67 regular-season games, but it would have lost us the Finals 4-1, and that's what we had to change," Green said, according to Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press.
The Warriors simultaneously increased their aggressiveness and cleaned up their execution.
They challenged the interior of Cleveland's defense without attacking overcrowded spaces. They hunted shots without forcing them, resulting in the most uncontested looks (45) they've had during a series that has already featured two overtime outings. They threw extra defenders at James, but their rotations were sharp enough to limit Cleveland to only 29 uncontested shots.
It was the same type of "organized chaos" that Warriors assistant Alvin Gentry told Bleacher Report's Howard Beck the team needed to find after dropping Games 2 and 3. The same kind of frenzied attack that powered the club to a franchise-record 67 wins during the regular season.
If the Warriors can keep their energy up, they might run the depleted Cavs out of this series.
Obvious Adjustments Each Team Must Make
Cleveland: Knocking Down Shots
Credit the Warriors for limiting the Cavs' number of open looks. But Cleveland effectively buried itself by failing to capitalize on the few it found.
The Cavs only made six uncontested shots the entire game; the Dubs drilled 24 of them. Cleveland desperately needed its shooters to demand some defensive attention. Instead, the Cavs had their worst shooting night of the season outside the paint, as ESPN Stats & Info noted:
"We couldn't make any shots from the outside," James said, according to CBS Sports' Zach Harper. "... When you go 4-of-27 from the three-point line, there's not much success offensively."
After mostly throwing single-coverage at James in the first three games—and watching the King pour in a record-setting 123 points during those contests—the Dubs flipped their defensive script. They kept extra sets of eyes on him at all times. They doubled-team him often, but did it in different ways to keep him uncomfortable.
Golden State challenged Cleveland's supporting cast to pick up the slack, and the Cavs looked like a team missing two All-Star scorers (Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love).
Golden State's quick start (a seven-point lead after the first, a 12-point advantage at intermission) meant Cleveland's interior scoring wouldn't be enough. The Cavs needed some long balls to keep things close, but J.R. Smith, Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert combined to shoot just 3-of-22 from distance.
Golden State: Stay Committed to Small Ball
The Warriors' undersized lineup presented some obvious issues.
Both Thompson and Mozgov had their best scoring games of the series. Each tracked down six offensive rebounds, the same number the Warriors had as a team. Cleveland won the battle of the offensive boards by 10 (16-6), the rebounding war by five (49-44) and the paint points fight by 10 (46-36).
That's perhaps why Kerr cautioned his players that his winning strategy in Game 4 isn't guaranteed to work as well again.
"He mentioned, obviously, just because we started that lineup tonight doesn't mean you can just go out there and expect to have the same results in Game 5," Curry said, per Mahoney. "We have to actually do something about it and execute the game plan, whoever's out there."
There's no denying the truth to that statement, but it's pretty obvious who needs to be out there for Golden State. All five starters—Curry, Iguodala, Green, Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes—had plus-minus differentials of at least plus-nine. Shaun Livingston posted a plus-25 in his 25 minutes; David Lee was plus-four during his 15 minutes of work.
All seven of those players are capable and willing passers. Every one but Livingston and Lee can stretch out the defense with the three-point shot. There's a ton of defensive versatility in that rotation, and they're all comfortable running the floor.
Golden State has several advantages in this series, but none more important than its deep stable of athletes. By leaning on their team speed at both ends—constant movement on offense, crisp rotations on defense—the Warriors can maximize the impact of that advantage.
X-Factors
Cleveland: LeBron James
James is grossly overqualified for the traditional X-factor label. It's most often extended to wild cards, guys who can swing the game in either direction based on whether their good or bad side shows up. (Hello, J.R. Smith!)
But this isn't a typical series. And there's no mystery left when it comes to the one thing capable of saving Cleveland.
"LeBron James has to win this series by himself," Sports Illustrated's Michael Rosenberg wrote, "and he has to do it by winning Games 5 or 7 in Oakland."
It really is that simple—and that daunting.
The Cavs need a couple of miracles from James, and he's proved before he can drum up some of the sweetest ones the sports world has ever seen.
But he has to find another one to keep Cleveland's championship hopes alive. The Cavs' perimeter players obviously need to play better. But just remember who those guys are: Dellavedova has a 9.6 career player efficiency rating; Smith's frigid spells are among the league's coldest; Shumpert is a career 39.6 percent shooter.
If James doesn't play the superhero role, the Cavs will be powerless to stop Golden State's locomotive.
Golden State: Draymond Green
It should surprise no one that Green's best performance of the series was also Golden State's. The Swiss army knife has been one of the Warriors' biggest keys to success all season.
At his best, he helps this team in all facets of the game. His passing is critical, as he's often served as the outlet option for Curry when the Cavs crowd the point guard off pick-and-rolls. Green's defense and rebounding are inspiring when the 6'7" forward is battling the 7'1" Mozgov under the rim.
Green's emotional leadership is invaluable. The grit he showed in Game 4 helped the Warriors set the perfectly scrappy tone.
After struggling mightily in the first three games (9.7 points on 26.7 percent shooting), he managed to reset his mind and find the requisite fight, per ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne:
Green's challenge is finding consistent levels of that energy and effectiveness.
The Cavs have mostly kept Curry and Thompson from making too big of a splash. The pair has averaged fewer combined points in this series (43.0) than it did during the regular season (45.5), despite seeing significantly more playing time.
Cleveland is daring someone else to win this series. Green has to accept the challenge.
Key Matchup
LeBron James vs. Andre Iguodala
This two-man battle has really evolved over the course of this series. Iguodala entered the championship round as a complementary piece in Golden State's offense. At the opposite end, he figured to be one of many weapons the Warriors could use on James.
Both of those narratives have changed quickly. Iguodala has nearly doubled his scoring average from the regular season (14.8, up from 7.8). Golden State has averaged 7.3 points per 100 possessions more when he's on the floor.
Defensively, Iguodala has been the one roadblock that James can't clear, as ESPN.com's Ethan Sherwood Strauss observed:
"He's been our best player through four games," Kerr said, according to Bay Area News Group's Marcus Thompson II. "He guards LeBron pretty much every possession that he's out there, and his offense has been terrific."
This matchup has to be a decisive victory for Cleveland. The Cavs obviously need all of the offensive production they can get from James. But they also can't afford to have Iguodala finding his rhythm.
Cleveland has tried to cheat off him at the defensive end. But that's hard to do when he's shooting 57.5 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from distance. And once they have to start keying in on someone like Iguodala, that might open things up for the Splash Brothers to rain down cannonballs from deep.
Four games into this series, these two players are sitting as the most likely Finals MVP candidates. James winning this battle alone won't help the Cavs win the war. But if he loses it like he did in Game 4, Cleveland won't stand a chance.
Prediction
It took the Warriors a lot longer than it should have to figure out the importance of playing hard. But now that they have finally learned that critical lesson, they should be ready to control a series that has always seemed like it's theirs for the taking.
James should bounce back in a big way Sunday. He not only has more time to recover, he also gets to digest Golden State's defensive adjustments and conjure up a new way to attack it.
But the Warriors' massive on-paper edge finally surfaced Thursday. Barring injury, it's not going to disappear. And the Cavs' shaky supporting cast might not become any more reliable.
Back in front of the Oracle faithful, the Warriors should ride this wave of momentum to another comfortable victory.
Prediction: Warriors 105, Cavaliers 90
Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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