Can Matthew Dellavedova Fill Kyrie Irving's Void for Cavaliers in NBA Finals?
Before the start of the 2015 NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt expressed full confidence in Matthew Dellavedova's ability to contribute to his team under any circumstances.
"Delly's the kind of guy that you can throw in any situation," Blatt told Bleacher Report's Jared Zwerling. "He's one of those kids that if his parents were to throw him into the water before he knew how to swim, he'd be doing the backstroke, the breaststroke and the crawl before any of us even figured out he was in there. So whatever we need him to do, he'll be ready to do."
Those comments came before Game 1 against the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. Little did Blatt know that Dellavedova would unwittingly wind up as the fulcrum on which his team's Finals fate may well hinge.
The Cavaliers announced Friday that Kyrie Irving will miss the remainder of the Finals—and the next three to four months of basketball activities. He will undergo surgery "in the coming days" to repair his fractured left knee cap. Irving came into this series with tendinitis in that same knee but appeared to suffer this particular injury in overtime during Cleveland's 108-100 Game 1 loss while handling the ball against Golden State's Klay Thompson.
Irving's absence leaves the Cavs without two-thirds of their Big Three, after Boston's Kelly Olynyk yanked Kevin Love's shoulder out of its socket in Game 4 of Cleveland's first-round sweep over the Celtics.
Dellavedova can't cover for both. He certainly can't cover for Love, whose size, strength, shooting ability and rebounding prowess are leagues beyond Dellavedova's grasp. Filling Irving's shoes, to any extent, won't be much easier for the guard.
Irving is a bona fide superstar. Behind the accolades (2011-12 Rookie of the Year, three All-Star appearances, an All-Star Game MVP, an All-NBA nod in 2014-15) lies a player who can be and often is an offense unto himself. He's the rare case of an expert ball-handler who also happens to be a dead-eye shooter.
Irving finished the regular season tied for 11th in the league in three-point percentage (41.5 percent) and outshot Stephen Curry, the sharpshooter to end all sharpshooters, from long range (45.0 percent to 43.4 percent) during the postseason.
Dellavedova, on the other hand, won't soon be mistaken for Skip To My Lou with the ball in his hands. Nor is he likely to inspire fear in the hearts of Golden State's defense with his herky-jerky, full-bodied heave of a shot, though he did nail 40.7 percent of his treys during the regular season (down to 36 percent in the playoffs).
Clearly, Dellavedova isn't Irving. Chances are, the Cavs aren't expecting him to be. Few point guards on the planet could even try to fill his shoes, though one of them happens to play for the Warriors.
Where "Delly" can approach Irving—and where he'll have to if he's to hold his own and help the Cavaliers hold theirs in this series—is with his toughness and tenacity. Dellavedova may not have the talent to match the 23 points, six assists, seven rebounds, four steals and two blocks that Irving tallied prior to limping off the floor Thursday.
But the grit that Irving showed playing through pain is something with which Dellavedova is plenty familiar.
The fighting spirit that Dellavedova channeled to mold himself into a better athlete at the Australian Institute of Sport—the one that fueled him through a productive four-year career at St. Mary's, the one that drove him to scrap and claw his way into the NBA after going undrafted in 2013—will be the same one that gives him and Cleveland a puncher's chance against the league's wire-to-wire leaders.
"When he first came, it was almost a fistfight every day in practice; every single day," Irving told Zwerling during the Cavs' pre-Finals layoff. "It wasn't that he was trying to be dirty or intentional or anything like that. It's just the way he is. It's just his nature. It's that Australian blood that he has in him that's running deep, and it's just deep-rooted.
"They just are nonstop. They're going to keep coming at you and whatever they have they're going to throw at you. So I just truly appreciate having a competitor like that. I love him."
Curry and the Warriors won't, if Dellavedova has his way. He's established himself as a pest throughout these playoffs. A former Australian rules footballer, Dellavedova isn't afraid to dive after loose balls, body up his mark on the defensive end and get under the skin of his opposition.
That spirit will come in handy for Dellavedova against the newly christened MVP. He doesn't have the foot speed to stick with Curry's on-a-string dribble or the length to bother his shot, as Irving did twice in Game 1. Instead, Dellavedova will have to do whatever he can to take Curry out of his comfort zone, even if he incurs a foul or two (or three) while doing so.
Then again, a rough-and-tumble approach to defending Curry may not be enough to curtail his offensive exploits. Over the years, he's become increasingly adept at playing through contact and is barely bothered by challenges to his unstoppable shots. As Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry detailed:
"NBA shooters make less than 30 percent of their 3s when a defender is right up on them, but they make 44 percent when the closest defender is 12 feet away. Curry makes 44 percent of his contested 3s. Let me make this totally clear: Curry is as good with a guy in his face as the average NBA shooter is when wide open.
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That doesn't mean that Dellavedova should play off Curry, or that he will.
Nor will slowing down Curry be Dellavedova's charge alone. It takes a village to contain a threat as lethal as the MVP. The Cavs took a team-wide approach in Game 1, often smothering Curry in pick-and-roll situations and forcing other Warriors to beat them.
In some respects, Dellavedova might actually be better equipped to hang with Curry than Irving was, if only because the 24-year-old Aussie is healthier than his starting counterpart. He won't be hobbled while chasing Curry around screens and across the court.
And it's not as though Dellavedova will be helpless on the other end, either. As poor as Dellavedova's performance was in Game 1—and, make no mistake, it was poor (no points, no shots, three assists, a game-worst rating of minus-13)—it wasn't indicative of his true capabilities, particularly as a stand-in for Irving.
When Irving's foot and knee emerged as serious concerns for the Cavs in Round 2 versus the Chicago Bulls, Dellavedova was there to pick up the slack. He scored a team-high 19 points and dogged Derrick Rose (14 points) to push Cleveland past the Chicago Bulls in Game 6.
When Irving re-aggravated his injuries in the Eastern Conference Finals, Dellavedova was once again ready in relief. He started in Games 2 and 3, pestering Atlanta's Jeff Teague (14-of-39 shooting across those two contests) while chipping in a combined 28 points of his own.
And each time Irving sat during the 2014-15 regular season, Dellavedova was prepared to hold the fort. For what it's worth, Irving has faith in Dellavedova's ability to "ice it down" from here on out:
But Curry is on a level of his own, high above Teague and Rose. The Warriors, with their depth and historic proficiency on both ends of the floor, might as well play in another league—not just another conference—apart from the one in which the imploding Bulls and the diminished Hawks competed.
The Finals are far more pressure-packed than anything Dellavedova has faced as a starter under any other circumstances, with lights bright enough to melt whatever icing he has in store.
Dellavedova is no Irving and, unless he's secretly a member of the Faceless Men, he won't be Irving in time for Game 2 on Sunday. In truth, the Cavs would be hard-pressed to beat the Warriors in a best-of-seven series even with their starter in the fold.
That doesn't mean, though, that Cleveland will simply give up and beg for mercy now that Irving's gone and Dellavedova is in his place. Whatever the outcome, you can be sure that the Cavs won't go down without a fight.
And that Dellavedova will be on the front lines pushing for one.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
