2018 NBA Finals Preview - Cavs vs Warriors IV
Surprise surprise, would you look who ended up making the 2018 NBA Finals. The matchup nobody really asked for, the Cleveland Cavaliers vs the Golden State Warriors IV. I must say, this is the first Finals I can remember that I’ve actually seen people say they may not even watch. Maybe that’s just talking tough on Twitter, but I look at it like this. I have no problem if the same two teams mean 4 times or 100 times. They earned the right to be there. It’s not either of these team’s fault that the competition couldn’t close the deal. That teams like the Pacers and the Celtics or the Rockets couldn’t close the deal. Both of the losing conference teams were the higher seed that had 3-2 leads. They both had an opportunity to win the series in front of their own fans. They couldn’t get it done. And I also don’t believe a person who has an interest in the NBA is not going to watch a Finals that will have Lebron James in it.
So what if these were the two teams everyone called back in October. This is still a Finals that is going to have at least 5 HOF talent players in it. There’s still some bad blood from the year before I would imagine. It’s OK to admit that it should be pretty interesting to see if Lebron can take this team down literally by himself. But since this is the fourth time we’re seeing these two teams play for the championship, we should first look back at to each of the previous three meetings
2014-15
Ah the first matchup. Remember how exciting this series was? The first two games being decided in overtime, CLE dropping Game 1 but then storming back to take a 2-1 lead. I’m sure they felt confident only to then see the Warriors win the next three games including a brutal Game 5 blowout in CLE. Lebron was still ridiculous, averaging 35.8/13.3/8.8 but the injury to Kyrie was too much to overcome.
That and Steph Curry. This GS win proved the idea that you could win with your PG being your best player, and that a jump shooting team could win the whole damn thing. If only we had any idea what was about to start
2015-16
Lebron’s Revenge. The Warriors won 73 games, became the best regular season team of all time and a familiar foe stood in their way of back to back titles. We all know what happened next. They blew their 3-1 lead in epic fashion. Unlike the first matchup these games weren’t all that close for either side. All three Warriors wins were blowouts, and the one CLE win was 120-90. In fact of the whole 7 game series, only Game 7 was close. And how could anyone forget the biggest moment of this series, when Draymond hit Lebron in the dick and ended up getting suspended for Game 5
A lot of people say Lebron won this title because of Kyrie Irving. I won’t go that far, Lebron was incredible averaging 29.7/11.3/8.9 that series, including back to back 41 point performances in Games 5 & 6, not to mention his triple double in Game 7. Lebron was finally able to bring that title to CLE that had eluded him all those years, and we had ourselves an official rivalry. People love to talk about being rivals with someone, but until you are taking titles away from one another, you aren’t really rivals. This also brought out the pettiness between the two teams, if you remember what Lebron wore off the plane
We all know what happened next
2016-17
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Draymond sent a text, and the rest was history. Of all the GS/CLE matchups, this one had to be the most hyped. The new Durant Super Team against Lebron/Kyrie in the rubber match. Unfortunately, this would not be a back and forth 6 or 7 game series like we had seen in the previous two. Besides a close Game 3, it was pretty much blowout after blowout in what ended up being a quick 5 game series win for GS. Durant had his first title, and the rest of the league was put on notice. Even with Lebron averaging 33.6/12/10 on 56% shooting the Cavs never really competed, and once they lost that first game to get down 3-0, that was it.
I mentioned the pettiness, well this was Draymond at the parade
Which brings us to this year’s matchup. If the Warriors were seen as a favorite last year, I can only imagine what they’ll be favored in this time around. Considering many people consider this the worst team Lebron has ever carried to a Finals, and with Kevin Love in the concussion protocol, this has the potential to be another quick series. But remember, you can’t count Lebron out. He’s been that ridiculous this postseason. In order to try and find a way the Cavs can pull this off, or even at least make it a competitive series, we have to look at what they do well.
For starters, they win at home. That’s always important when you’re going to have to rely on the type of talent CLE has. One of the biggest things to keep an eye on during this series when the games are in CLE is the Cavs ability to defend the three point line. We all know these teams love shooting threes, and we know that the Warriors can kill you with threes before you can even understand what’s happening. Here’s the good news. The Cavs hold their opponents to the 3rd fewest 3PM among all playoff teams at 8.6 a game. Opponents are shooting just 33% from three in their arena. When you expand this to include road games, it’s a similar story as they rank 4th. Basically despite the thought that the Cavs are horrific at defense, the one thing they have shown to do this postseason is defend the three. That’s going to be extremely important.
Like with everything involving CLE, it’s going to come down to how GS can limit the non-Lebrons. Chances are much like every other team so far, nobody is going to stop Lebron. I would imagine the Cavs have learned that Tristan Thompson should not only start but play a lot, and if the Warriors are not going to have Iguodala that means guys like Draymond/Klay/Durant are going to have to deal with Lebron, which is foul trouble waiting to happen. On paper, the Warriors are a matchup nightmare for the Cavs, especially without Love, which is why if Lue is smart he’ll just give it to Lebron and set a high screen for him. When the Cavs use P&R or a little pick and switch, the ball handler aka Lebron scores 0.90 points per possession while shooting 45%. That shooting percentage is the 2nd best of any playoff team this year and when Lebron can sniff out a mismatch you bet your ass he’s going to take it.
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If the Cavs want any chance in this series, they are going to have to change the fact that they are one of the worst spot up shooting teams this postseason. They shoot just 36.9% on spot up shots, and just finished a ECF where they certainly had their dry spells. Korver, JR, Green are all going to have their open spot up looks, they are going to have to be consistent there to help create space for Lebron.
If you’re the Warriors, I mean you have an outrageous advantage at almost every spot outside of Lebron. George Hill vs Steph Curry? JR Smith vs Klay? Jeff Green vs Draymond? That’s a disaster. The Warriors really have one goal on the offensive end, and that is to tire out Lebron. With this GS team Lebron isn’t going to be able to take defensive possessions off like he did against the Celtics to conserve energy. I don’t know who you hide him on, and whoever he is ultimately matched up with, you run that guy off a million screens. If it’s Durant, or Klay you tell them to run Lebron into the ground. The quicker you can get Lebron’s legs to go, the easier things are going to be for you down the stretch. The Cavs want to slow you down and beat you in the half court. The Warriors play at a drastically faster pace at 99.88, which is going to feel a whole lot faster for the Cavs than the Celtics, who play at the 4th slowest pace among playoff teams. If the Warriors can make this a track meet, the Cavs don’t stand a chance.
The big thing for the Warriors isn’t all that different this series as it is in every series they play. Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot. GS definitely has a turnover problem, and the worst thing you can do is give this Cavs team easy transition buckets. This defense is good enough that the CLE role players should be pretty well contained, because remember there is no Kyrie Irving this time around. It didn’t both them against HOU, but I could see the potential absence of Iguodala to be much more of a factor in this series. The job he did on Lebron can’t be overlooked, and he allows the Warriors to truly play small, thus making it hard for the Cavs to play Love/Thompson, which they probably want to do.
It’s always a tough spot when as a fan you don’t really want either team to win. Maybe one day there will be a team out there that actually doesn’t just talk about it, but actually knocks one of these two teams off. Until then, they’ll keep meeting in the Finals (or wherever Lebron is) and we’ll just have to deal with it. All I ask is for an entertaining Finals. This whole year was filled with awesome basketball, just don’t end the season with a dud.
Official Greenie Prediction: Warriors in 6