What Can Golden State Warriors Do to Slow Down LeBron James?
For every problem they've faced during their run through the 2015 NBA playoffs, the Golden State Warriors have summoned a solution.
In Round 1, they made Anthony Davis work for his opportunities while hounding his inexperienced New Orleans Pelicans teammates. The result: a clean sweep.
In Round 2, they responded to Tony Allen's defensive reign of terror by rendering him unplayable offensively. By "assigning" Andrew Bogut to Allen—and, instead, having Bogut hang back in the paint—the Warriors simultaneously dared the so-called "Grindfather" to beat them and freed three defenders to tangle with Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. From there, Golden State turned a 2-1 series deficit into a 4-2 victory.
In the Western Conference Finals, the Dubs took a "kitchen sink" approach to pestering James Harden. They threw everyone and everything at him, at least as far as long-armed wing defenders are concerned, to force him to "play in the crowd." By Game 5, that crowd was cajoling Harden into a historically awful night: 2-of-11 shooting from the field, with a playoff-record 12 turnovers.
Once the Cleveland Cavaliers arrive in Oakland for the NBA Finals on June 4, though, the Warriors will be faced with a new (and uniquely vexing) challenge: figuring out how to slow down LeBron James.
According to James himself, via Northeast Ohio Media Group's Chris Haynes, "You can't."
He's not wrong about that. James' shooting percentages through the first three rounds were ugly, but his impact on his team's proceedings has rarely, if ever, been so profound. He's averaging career postseason highs in rebounds (10.4) and assists (8.3) while pouring in 27.6 points per game and using up a whopping 36.4 percent of the Cavaliers' possessions, per Basketball Reference.
And while seemingly everyone around him, friend and foe alike, has weakened over the course of this postseason, James has only gotten stronger:
| Mins | Pts | Rebs | Ast | Usage | |
| East Quarters | 43.0 | 27.0 | 9.0 | 6.5 | 31.8% |
| East Semis | 40.8 | 26.2 | 11.0 | 8.8 | 38.4% |
| East Finals | 38.2 | 30.3 | 11.0 | 9.3 | 39.6% |
Golden State will be the toughest test yet for James and the Cavs. The Warriors stood head and shoulders above the competition throughout the regular season, during which they won a franchise-record 67 games by an average margin of better than 10 points per contest. That margin has slipped somewhat in these playoffs, to just over eight points per game, but the team's record (12-3) still speaks for itself.
So, too, does Golden State's store of defenders to lob at LeBron. Among Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson (pending his recovery from a concussion), Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, the Warriors have five defenders between 6'6" and 6'8", 10 long arms and 30 fouls with which to disrupt James from game to game.
On paper, Golden State has enough options on hand to make James eat his words. But in practice, the Warriors' hands will be just as full as any team's would be in this situation.
That is, if James' lone game against the Warriors from the 2014-15 season is any indication.
James sat out the first meeting between Cleveland and Golden State, a 112-94 Warriors romp at Oracle Arena, while on his now-infamous midseason sabbatical to South Beach. He more than made up for lost time on Feb. 26, scoring a season-high 42 points, pulling down 11 rebounds and dishing out five assists—all on a sore back, no less—during a nationally televised 110-99 win over the visiting Warriors at Quicken Loans Arena.
James' one-man demolition 11 days after the All-Star Game offers as many causes for concern as it does clues to success for the Warriors as they spend the coming days devising ways to contain the best basketball player on Earth.
The first order of business for any team attempting to defend James is to take away the drives to the rim that constitute the bread and butter of his game.
That's much easier said than done. At 6'8" and 250 pounds, James is bigger and stronger than any of the wings at Warriors coach Steve Kerr's disposal. And with his world-class blend of speed and leaping ability at his size, James can go over or around those who try to impede his progress just as easily as he can go through them.
For the most part, Golden State struggled to keep James out of the paint during their regular-season meeting with the Cavs. He hit eight of 10 shots near the rim and got to the free-throw line another 11 times, converting eight of those.
Even Green, this year's runner-up in Defensive Player of the Year voting, was no match for James in the low post:
Green, though, is crafty enough to harass James here and there. Barnes is getting there, as well, and he has the length, wiry strength and quick feet to at least hold his ground between James and the hoop. Here, Barnes offers enough resistance to force James into shuffling his feet and drawing a traveling call:
Of course, it typically takes a village to defend James. And when said village is missing a true rim protector, it takes more than that. As such, Andrew Bogut, Golden State's best (only?) paint-patroller, will be pivotal to Golden State's hopes of stymying the King.
Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard added: "Few in the league are better at walling off the rim than Bogut, but he needs to stay out of foul trouble and the rotations need to be crisp. Whenever he leaves the game, the lane will be wide open, and once LeBron gets that close it's all over."
Bogut will be the one chiefly charged with challenging James at the rim should it come to that, and it will. James is going to get into the lane, regardless of whatever safeguards Kerr and his staff, led defensively by Ron Adams, are able to devise.
What's important is that the Warriors do everything they can to crowd James if/when he winds up there. James may be a basketball savant, but he's not immune to fits of confusion when surrounded on all sides by active defenders.
Ideally, the Warriors would do whatever they can to turn James into a jump-shooter. He shot well against Golden State in February (7-of-15 outside of the paint, 4-of-9 from three) but was uncommonly brick-prone throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs:
That may not last. Then again, if you're the Warriors, you'd probably much rather take your chances with James launching, particularly late in the shot clock, over hoping Bogut can summon his inner Roy Hibbert time and time again.
Beyond the particulars of dealing with James, Golden State will have to stay true to the fundamentals of the game to limit the influence that No. 23 has on the outcome.
James is a master of bending defenses whichever way he pleases, and he already ranks as the most prolific passing forward the NBA has ever seen. If one of Cleveland's corps of shooters (i.e. Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, Matthew Dellavedova, James Jones) has room, or if a cutter (i.e. Tristan Thompson, Timofey Mozgov) flashes into an opening, James is liable to find him.
The onus, then, is on the Warriors to keep their defensive rotations crisp and precise, lest they let James pick them apart with the pass.
The same could be said for Golden State's offense, with Stephen Curry at the helm. The Cavs are capable of turning every Warriors miscue into easy points on the other end, courtesy of James' prowess in transition.
Turnovers have long been Golden State's Achilles' heel. That's held true in the 2015 postseason, during which the Warriors have posted the highest turnover ratio (15.7 per 100 possessions, per NBA.com) among the 16 participants.
Fortunately for them, the Cavs defense, in all of its playoff stinginess, has forced opponents into turnovers just 11.8 percent of the time—the second-lowest mark, behind only that of the Portland Trail Blazers.
In the bigger picture, this Cleveland team isn't the same one that felled the mighty Warriors three months ago. Kevin Love, who scored 16 points and knocked down three triples in that game, has been (and will be) out of commission with a bum shoulder. Irving, who poured in 24 points of his own that evening, may not be so able to torture Golden State's perimeter defense with his quickness and craftiness off the bounce, now that he's been hobbled by foot and knee injuries.
And, well, the Warriors didn't have eons to game-plan for those Cavs the way they will for these ones. Eight days should be more than enough time for Kerr, Adams and the rest of Golden State's coaching brain trust to come up with ways to fortify their immovable object against the NBA's most unstoppable force.
Truth be told, the Warriors will need every resource they can muster (time, energy, size, strength, speed, intellectual capital, etc.) if they're to jam James up in this series. Whether Golden State needs all of that to win four games against Cleveland, and claim the franchise's first championship in 40 years, is another story.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
