Cleveland's Crisis: What Should David Blatt Do About Timofey Mozgov's Minutes?

The Cavaliers are facing a bit of an identity crisis as the NBA Finals heads to Game 6.

The Cavs staked themselves to a 2-1 lead, thanks to dominant defensive performances and ferocious rebounding in Games 2 and 3. But when the Warriors struck back with their small-ball lineup in Games 4 and 5, everything swung back in Golden State's favor. 

The Warriors dictated everything in those two contests, even forcing the Cavaliers to abandon some of what they were doing to gain key advantages throughout the early part of the series. Cleveland lost confidence that its defense could deal with five perimeter threats at once. 

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The Cavs' big adjustment bore itself out most in Game 5, when Timofey Mozgov—who had been their best player in Game 4 with 28 points and 10 rebounds—played just nine minutes in a 13-point loss. 

"It's no disrespect to anyone, certainly not to Timo, who has done a great job for us," Cleveland head coach David Blatt told reporters after Game 5 when asked about his reasoning on Mozgov's minutes. "That's just the way that we played it tonight, and Timo will be back and he will not lose his way or lose his head just because he didn't play a lot tonight."

Throughout the series, the Cavaliers have been very effective with Mozgov in the game. Alternately, they've been terrible without him:

Lineup	Minutes	FG%	3PT%	Plus/Minus
Mozgov in	137	0.425	0.318	+6
Mozgov out	113	0.328	0.293	-41

Mozgov's been particularly effective when running pick-and-rolls with LeBron James; that action has generated good looks all over the floor, whether they've been for James, Mozgov or a shooter dotting the perimeter. 

It's a wonder Cleveland hasn't gone to it more often, especially when Andre Iguodala defends James. The Warriors veteran has more than held his own in isolation against James on the wing or in the post. 

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Whatever their play-calling, the Cavs have fared quite well with LeBron and Mozgov on the floor together. They're plus-8 in 129 such minutes in the Finals, the fourth-best mark of any Cleveland tandem.

In the 99 minutes LeBron has been in the game without Mozgov, though, Golden State has outscored Cleveland by 34 points. 

There are similar numbers when it comes to data for the Cavs' two big men, Mozgov and Tristan Thompson. Cleveland has outscored the Warriors with both bigs in the game and when Mozgov has played without Thompson. But Golden State has blasted the Cavs when Thompson's played without Mozgov:

Lineup	Minutes	FG%	3PT%	Plus-Minus
Mozgov and Thompson	104	0.422	0.327	+1
Mozgov, no Thompson	33	0.434	0.294	+5
Thompson, no Mozgov	103	0.320	0.271	-53
No Mozgov or Thompson	8	0.429	0.600	+12

Of course, the Warriors went to a small lineup starting in Game 4, with Draymond Green and David Lee the only players getting notable minutes at center, as Warriors coach Steve Kerr sat Andrew Bogut in favor of Iguodala. It's important then to look at the same lineup configurations for just those two games to see if anything changed:  

Lineup	Game 1-3	Game 4	Game 5
Mozgov and Thompson	+6	+1	-6
Mozgov, no Thompson	+9	-6	+2
Thompson, no Mozgov	-23	-14	-16
No Mozgov or Thompson	+7	-2	+7

The Cavs lost those two games by a combined 34 points, but lineups containing Mozgov were not all that bad. Instead, the trouble for Cleveland came when it played Thompson as the lone big man on the floor, just as it had earlier in the series. 

The Warriors outscored the Cavs by a combined 31 points in the 45 minutes played with just Thompson across Games 4 and 5—almost the entire margin of defeat. And it's not like that all came in one contest—Golden State soundly beat the Cavs when Thompson was on the floor without Mozgov in each matchup. 

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Lineups with Mozgov but not Thompson were minus-4 in 11 minutes across those two games, while lineups featuring both bigs were minus-5 in 32 minutes. 

None of the various combinations had a positive plus-minus in both contests.

The other three lineup configurations, though, had per-48-minute scoring margins that were extremely negative: 

1. Mozgov and Thompson: minus-7.5
2. Mozgov, no Thompson: minus-17.5
3. Thompson, no Mozgov: minus-32

You can expect the Cavs to break out the lineup without either big man for stretches of Game 6 Tuesday at Quicken Loans Arena and a possible Game 7 Friday in Oakland, but what all the above data points to is that if Blatt is going to play a big man, he should either play both Mozgov and Thompson together or use Mozgov as the lone big on the floor.

All statistics courtesy of NBA.com unless otherwise noted.