NBA Finals 2015: Stats and Trends That Decided Cavaliers vs. Warriors
The Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy has been destined to land in the Bay Area for most of the season, as the Golden State Warriors have dominated the NBA, but their run to glory in the 2015 NBA Finals couldn't have happened without some key contributions.
Whether it was something the Warriors did or something the Cleveland Cavaliers didn't do, certain trends helped to pave the way for Golden State in what turned into a grueling series. It's seemed inevitable for some since their 67-win regular season that the Warriors would reign supreme in the postseason, but they needed things to go their way in a few key categories to fulfill their destiny.
Let's take a look at what those were.
No Help for the King
The capable guard play from role players that had been an X-factor for the Cavs throughout their playoff run quickly turned into their weakest link throughout the Finals.
Kyrie Irving set the tone in Game 1 before his overtime injury kept him out for the series, and Matthew Dellavedova followed suit with a pair of herculean performances that helped Cleveland to steal Games 2 and 3. Then, everything went sour.
For the series, Dellavedova, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert simply failed to produce. They shot a combined 28.4 percent from the field for the series, with Smith's 31.2 percent clip being the only one that eclipsed the 30 percent mark.
With their struggles in mind, general manager David Griffin stated that the team expects most of them back, per Tom Withers of the Associated Press:
It's not surprising to hear the Cavaliers are invested in putting together a similar unit to attack next year's championship. After all, they came two wins away from the promised land without two of their three best players, and it could have been a very different result had they not been thrust into bigger roles.
With that said, the cold streak displayed by the trio can't be promising for Cleveland fans who are already trying to piece together a run at next year's Finals in their minds.
Starting When It Matters Most
The sacrifice displayed by many Warriors players throughout a 2014-15 season in which roles changed drastically seemed to be defined by Andre Iguodala, who willingly came off the bench for all of Golden State's regular season and playoff run.
But time came for a change entering Game 4, with Golden State down 2-1 in the series. Head coach Steve Kerr inserted Iguodala into the starting lineup for Game 4, setting up a resounding 103-82 Warriors victory.
The move directly resulted in Iguodala's offensive explosion. He shot 22-of-46 in the final three games, averaging more than 20 points per contest in that span and taking home Finals MVP honors after the series win.
ESPN showcased how Iguodala's impact grew once inserted into the lineup:
While the performance of Stephen Curry may have overshadowed Iguodala from a sheer stats standpoint, his impact couldn't be overstated. Kerr himself talked about how Iguodala's sacrifice set the tone for the entire season, per ESPN's Baxter Holmes:
"For us, it's really fitting that the award went to Andre because he sacrificed his starting role from the first game of the season. He had never come off the bench once in his entire career, and he sacrificed that job to make Harrison [Barnes] better, to make our bench better, and that set the tone for our whole season. An All-Star, an Olympian saying, "OK, I'll come off the bench."
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The Cavs matched the Warriors' small-ball roster well for much of Game 5, choosing to sit Timofey Mozgov for most of the contest. It didn't pay off, and Cleveland returned home for Game 6 opting to allow Mozgov and Tristan Thompson to chase around Iguodala and Draymond Green.
Some 48 minutes later, the Warriors had put the finishing touches on their title. And it was in no small part due to Kerr's switch to Iguodala in the starting lineup.
Who's Too Small Now?
All throughout the early stretches of his NBA career, Draymond Green heard about how he was too small to play power forward. Few 6'7" players have ever thrived at the position, and that feeling seemed to materialize with Green struggling early in the Finals.
It's no coincidence that he turned things around just as the Warriors started to take control of the series.
After averaging fewer than 10 points per contest in the series' opening three games, Green exploded offensively. He put up point totals of 17, 16 and 16 in the final three games, posting a triple-double in Game 6 that put him alone in a stretch of history, as Kevin Pauga of Michigan State noted:
With the struggles of his career in focus, Green celebrated his beating the critics as much as anything else, as Bleacher Report's Sean Highkin reported:
What looms now is the task of re-signing Green, who enters restricted free agency this summer with the opportunity to sign an offer sheet with any team that the Warriors could choose to match. Golden State fans don't have to worry about it getting that far, as general manager Bob Myers told fans "they shouldn't worry," per Jeff Faraudo of Bay Area News Group.
There were reasons to doubt during stretches of these Finals, but Green got good at the right time to help push Golden State over the top. And one shouldn't expect him to be anywhere else next season after that.
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