How Warriors Try To Throw LeBron James Off His Rhythm

ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Golden State Warriors have a 1-0 series lead in the 2015 NBA Finals over the Cleveland Cavaliers, escaping with 108-100 win three nights ago as LeBron James scored 44 points.

Warriors assistant coach and defensive guru Ron Adams had told Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports before Game 1:

“LeBron is the gold standard for these games,” said Adams to Yahoo Sports. “It’s always a difficult task trying to slow him down. The thing from my standpoint that makes him unique is his basketball intelligence. Yes, he can rebound, pass, score. He can do all those things. But his intelligence is what really drives him right now.
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“It’s the thing that really separates him from the pack as a player. So you got to be pretty eclectic when you’re guarding him. You have to be extremely aware and focused on our game plan for that given game then you go from there. But there are no easy answers for that.”

So what exactly did Adams mean?

The day after Game 1 at the Warriors practice at Oracle Arena, Adams explained.

“Well, we’re trying to really be diligent in that regard. He’s clever. What makes his passing so effective is, he’s able to deliver these really crisp passes and they’re catchable for their shooters,” Adams said. “He has the tendency — when you’re loose on the weak side he kind of delivers the ball in rhythm, guys are stepping into their shots. I felt [long pause] maybe we broke up that rhythm a little — I mean, I don’t want to get on a soap box about it because he’s so clever in disguising what he does and so on, but I think we have to get better over there.”

Draymond Green echoed Adams.

“He’d much rather pass and be a distributor and get everybody else involved than be a scorer,” said Green. “Everybody says he’s more Magic (Johnson) than (Michael) Jordan, so we’re just trying to keep his teammates out of the game and not let him distribute as much as he’d like.

“I think that kind of takes him a little out of his comfort zone.”

Adams peeled the onion a little further.

“What happens, and we talked about it earlier, is we’re being pulled off of our men to really facilitate and try to stop his play, but that also is close to the weak side small defender who’s guarding that man in the corner,” said Adams. “So (the defender) has to get involved with the big (man) and he also has to get back out if something comes his way to that corner. I think in all these things we’ve got to get better because they’re going to look at what happened and expect them to be better.”

@BekeGSW found the perfect still shot from Game 1:

The length! Ron Adams at work! RT @BekeGSW: Blatt really the luckiest person on this planet. He gets paid to do this pic.twitter.com/LZBWECpenE

— Poor Man's Commish (@poormanscommish) June 5, 2015

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The arms of Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala, all of whom stand 6’7″, formed a veritable wall from fingertip to fingertip on the weakside of the court as James surveyed his one-on-one matchup against Klay Thompson.

Post-Game 1 Reactions

Green: ”But you never know until you go up against him…something is working for a minute and then it goes to crap.”

Film Study: One-on-one with LeBron: Iggy was outstanding on both ends in G1. — John Schuhmann, NBA.com

“Iguodala played 21:28 straight, spanning the 3rd quarter through OT. A career-defining performance against LeBron tonight.” — Adam Lauridsen, San Jose Mercury

LeBron's shot chart tonight when guarded by Iguodala. #GSW #Warriors #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/4U9726IEao

— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) June 5, 2015