NBA Finals 2015: Warriors' Near-Comeback in Game 3 Can Reshape Entire Series
Two games. That's all that separates us from one of the most surprising NBA Finals results in history. The Cleveland Cavaliers held on tight for a 96-91 win in Tuesday's Game 3, overcoming an onslaught of mental errors to take a 2-1 lead over the Golden State Warriors.
As someone who picked a Golden State sweep, these words are being written between trying to find the right spices to make the foot planted in my mouth taste less like, umm, foot.
What's been striking about the first three games is how thoroughly Cleveland has dictated the pace. Running a series of ugly isolations and post-ups that run counter to everything we've come to know about modern basketball, the Cavaliers' bully ball has halted the NBA's most scintillating show.
How Cleveland's been stopping Golden State is as beautiful in its simplicity as it is ugly in practice.
On offense, the Cavs hand the ball to LeBron James, stand around for the first 15 or so seconds of the shot clock and hope the world's best player finds a way to bail everyone out. Sometimes they'll throw a pick-and-roll in there or a weak-side rim run from a big, but it may go down as the least complicated offense to ever win an NBA championship.
Look how little attention Golden State is paying to anyone in yellow not wearing No. 23:
You don't need a Hubie Brown-level mind for basketball to know that's not the most efficient way to run an NBA offense. LeBron is barely shooting 40 percent for the series, and he's working harder than ever on every single shot. But there is a method to the madness.
The Cavaliers are averaging 33.3 shots per game with seven seconds or less remaining on the shot clock. For reference, the Utah Jazz were the only team to average 20 such attempts during the regular season. The shots Cleveland's getting are low-percentage propositions—it's barely hitting a third of them—but they're chief among the ways the Cavs have limited Golden State's transition opportunities.
Also integral has been the innate rebounding ability of Tristan Thompson, who has already scarfed 17 offensive boards. The mere threat of Thompson tapping the ball back has Golden State wings hanging back a tick or two rather than leaking out on missed shots.
After leading the NBA in pace during the regular season, averaging nearly a possession-and-a-half more than any other team, Golden State has allowed Cleveland to turn these Finals into a half-court affair. The two teams are averaging 93.74 possessions per game, roughly seven fewer than the Warriors' regular-season average. The nonexistent pacing has Golden State scoring at a Timberwolfian level, has Stephen Curry being raked through the hot-take coals and harkens back to the Warriors' struggles against the Memphis Grizzlies.
"We will watch significant parts of it, but the similarity is there," Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters. "Physical team that slows it down, like Memphis did. Our frustration with our pace and tempo is there. So it's very similar and it's very helpful that we've been through this process. Obviously, the personnel is different; the teams are different. But it's something we've been through, and that is a positive that we can draw on that experience."
Mike Prada over at SB Nation did an excellent film breakdown of how the Cavs are navigating Curry and Klay Thompson on defense. Essentially, the Cavs are taking a page out of Kerr's notebook and daring players other than the Splash Brothers to beat them.
Cleveland is blitzing every Curry pick-and-roll, forcing him to pass the ball to the rolling big. While that creates a numbers advantage, the Warriors have consistently been unable to take advantage. Green has fallen into a deep shooting slump, and with the Cavs having Thompson's defender stick to him, it becomes a three-on-two game wherein Golden State's three non-scorers are forced to make plays.
"It seems odd that the Warriors of all teams are having trouble spacing the floor, but Cleveland has made it so with this extreme strategy," Prada wrote. "The Warriors may have a revolutionary offensive system built around the greatest shooting backcourt of all time, and dizzying ball movement the league has rarely seen, but the Cavaliers have stripped the powerful collective down to its ordinary spare parts."
The Warriors' starting lineup, which outscored opponents by 19.6 points per 100 possessions during the regular season, is being outscored by 12.2 points per 100 in the Finals. The starting unit has gone from being the NBA's most impenetrable force to borderline unplayable.
Luckily, Kerr may have found the key to turning around the series in a blast from the past. The Golden State coach exhumed David Lee for the fourth quarter in Game 3, who reminded the world he's actually pretty damn good at basketball while spearheading a comeback alongside Curry. Lee scored 11 points, grabbed four rebounds and had two assists in 13 minutes, serving as the secondary playmaker the Warriors have so sorely needed.
Whereas Green has looked indecisive and borderline scared to make a play as the roll man, Lee was the polar opposite. He aggressively slipped screens to get a head start toward the rim and made decisive decisions with the ball in his hands.
"They were doing the same thing [to Curry] in the fourth quarter as they were in the first three," Kerr told reporters. "They're going to blitz him. They're going to trap the high screen. That's what they're doing to him. That's what a lot of people do to him. But I think what helped him was David Lee playing so well as the roll man, and Steph was able to find David, and that softened them up a little bit. David was terrific."
It's not that Green can't make these passes. He's usually a good passer in space and is a smart enough player to make the same reads. It just hasn't been there all series. The Cavs aren't showing him any respect as a shooter, and his inability to make them pay has only emboldened defenders to take bigger, more space-constricting risks.
Lee is a better all-around offensive player, an elite high-post passer with a consistent stroke in mid-range. The areas Cleveland has been leaving open all series are the ones that once made the Warriors believe Lee was a foundational player.
Golden State's pace jumped all the way to 104.4, and they posted an offensive rating of 138.1 with Lee on the floor in Game 3. All the small sample-size caveats apply, but Kerr has to look long and hard at changing his rotations for Thursday night.
Barnes and Andrew Bogut have been rendered almost entirely ineffective for most of the series. Barnes has been overmatched early in games when defending James, who has consistently embarrassed him in the post. Bogut has been outworked and out-toughed by Thompson down low, something I never thought I'd write about the Australian malcontent.
The Warriors mounted their comeback with an extremely small-ball lineup with Green as the nominal center and Lee at the 4. It was the first time all series that the Warriors looked like the Warriors. That lineup might hemorrhage points against a more creative offensive team. It won't against Cleveland. The Cavs are who they are at this point; their roster lacks the depth to make adjustments.
If Kerr's willing to carry over the hot hand from Game 3, one little adjustment may send the series back to Oakland tied 2-2 and put Golden State back in the driver's seat.
Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.
All stats courtesy of NBA.com.
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