How The Warriors Will Try To Beat Cavs In 2015 NBA Finals

WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr started off the eight-day break before the 2015 NBA Finals and after his Warriors had defeated the Houston Rockets in five games by harping, as he has done all year, on the turnovers.

“Sometimes your best defense is your offense. You can’t go crazy with the ball. A live-ball turnover with LeBron is just a dunk,” Kerr said last Friday after the Warriors took Thursday off following the Wednesday night series close-out.

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Stephen Curry started the week leading up to Game 1 of the Finals by saying last Friday that the game plan for defending LeBron James had not yet been installed, but it was certain to be similar to how the Warriors tried to contain James Harden in the previous series.

By yesterday, Andrew Bogut indicated that there had been plenty of film study (as opposed to scrimmaging) over the past five days.

“A lot of it’s scouting type teaching stuff,” Bogut said.

Defending LeBron

So just what will the Warriors do about James?

“He’s a big dilemma for everybody,” said Kerr, who wasn’t ready to reveal any specific secrets, back on Friday.

Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group wrote:

There’s a lot more time to analyze this, but as I’ve said, I think the Warriors will start Harrison Barnes on LeBron, then have Andre Iguodala ready to check in for long stretches… then they might save Draymond Green for the closing run vs. LBJ.
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But they also might view LBJ similarly to the way they viewed James Harden–they won’t commit everything they’ve got to him because they believe they can make LBJ take tough shots 1 on 1… and their greatest worry might be dropping everybody onto him and watching Kyrie Irving or someone else bomb away from three.

“Hopefully, verticality will still be a legal rule in this series,” said Bogut.

“It’s not a one-person challenge,” said Draymond Green.

Diamond Leung of the Bay Area News Group:

“You just try to throw different things at him,” Iguodala said. “We talk about ‘Strength in Numbers,’ that being our slogan, trying to wear teams down, trying to wear guys down.
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“I feel like if we play the way we should play at our best, we have a great chance.”

NBA.com’s John Schuhmann dug into the numbers and found that Iguodala guarded James the most from the last Cavs-Warriors meeting on February 26, 2015.

That same #SportVU matchup data from 2/26 indicates that Iguodala guarded LeBron a lot more than any other Warrior: pic.twitter.com/rsgj76OVie

— John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) June 1, 2015

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But James isn’t phased, as Tom Withers of the Associated Press writes:

James, in his 12th year in the league, has seen just about everything. He said it’s always a luxury for a team to have a variety of defensive players, and the Warriors are no different in that regard.
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”They have multiple bodies that they can kind of put on me,” James said, ”but it doesn’t affect what I need to do.”
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The Warriors also want to limit the opportunities James creates for his teammates.
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The number of assists he has might be just as important as how many points he scores. Collapsing around him and leaving another player open for a 3-pointer can be costly, which is why the Warriors are looking at the defensive plan as a ”team challenge.”

The Cavs Have To Guard Curry, Too

The flip-side to the James dilemma is how the Cavs will try to defend Curry, this year’s MVP. Off the bat, as reported by Withers, Cleveland head coach David Blatt was reported as saying Irving’s progress from left knee tendinitis, which caused him to miss Games 2 and 3 against the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference Finals, has been “slow.”

Coach Gibb of Basketball Breakdown had an in-depth scouting report on how the Warriors’ offense frees up Curry:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXwiOEtNYQ4&w=560&h=315]

It’s a daunting task for Cleveland.

Heed the warning of President Barack Obama:

POTUS' response to a #Cavs/JR Smith fan: #StephCurry (via @heydubnation) https://t.co/zm4uTN7Q3x pic.twitter.com/8mbTUrHMxA

— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) June 1, 2015

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Mental Approach

Yet perhaps the most important part of countering the Cavs may be the Warriors’ mental approach.

The elephant in the room is James and not to get too caught up in his ongoing legacy. Draymond Green called it, “removing himself from being a fan”.

Aside from ensuring proper rest, especially for Curry, the Warriors have to deal with the hoopla surrounding the NBA Finals, as Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle writes:

“We just talked about the difference between the Finals and the rest of the playoffs — none of which is on the court,” Kerr said. “That’s my biggest message: Once the game starts, it’s all the same.”
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It’s the off-the-court stuff that changes. The Warriors will be forced to practice at Oracle Arena instead of at their practice facility once the series starts. There are many more media commitments.
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Family, friends and hangers-on want tickets. There will be games in Cleveland that won’t tip off until 9 p.m. Essentially, the off-court routine is destined to be affected.
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“There are all of these subtle, little differences that you have to prepare for, but in the end, you still tip it up and play,” Kerr said. “It’s just getting to that point with a clear head.”
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Walton lost in his first trip to the NBA Finals, saying the Lakers got too excited and too distracted by trying to set up tickets, flights and hotels for their family and friends.
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The Lakers lost in 2008, but they came back and won in 2009 and 2010.

The Warriors have progressed through the playoffs with the thinking that they can constantly become better, and that mentality will have to pervade throughout the Finals as well.

“I don’t think we’ve reached our peak, by any means,” Harrison Barnes told reporters at practice.

Reaching the pinnacle means celebrating with your teammates, the one thing that Kerr recalls from his five championships, and the Warriors will be looking to mark off all the key checkpoints to achieve that end.