Matchup Musings

One of these men will soon have an NBA Championship on their resume’.

With no Cavs game tonight, and the Western Conference Finals going back to Oakland for Game Seven, now seemed like a good time to look at the Cavaliers and how they match up with both of their potential opponents in the NBA Finals. There’s no doubt that the NBA Finals are going to be an absolute war regardless of whom the Cavaliers face, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t match up better against one of the Thunder or the Warriors than the other, regardless of who they may want to face.

It goes without saying, but the Thunder really blew it Saturday night. They led for the majority of the game, and were fending off Golden State’s runs with just enough of a burst of their own to keep the Warriors from taking control until the closing minutes of the game. Then the wheels completely came off. The Thunder didn’t score in the last 2:25 of the game, while the Warriors had nine points in the last 2:06 to take the game. OKC’s combination of terrible offense, bad defense, and constant turnovers was both amazing and awful to watch, and they’ve likely thrown away their best chance to win the series. Yes, there’s still game seven, but at this point it would be amazing to see the Thunder regroup from that loss and beat the Warriors in the Oracle Arena two days later. A Warriors-Cavaliers rematch in the Finals looks inevitable at this point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-v5fQ4KEw
That’s a shame for the Cavs. While they are playing well enough to compete with, and beat either team, the Thunder seems like a better matchup for the Cavaliers in terms of both strengths and weaknesses. That’s amazing when you consider the greatness of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, but there’s a lot of evidence that it’s true.

Kevin Durant is an amazing player. His combination of length and shooting ability is unmatched in the league, and he’s improved as a two-way player every year of his career. He’s also 4-17 against LeBron James in his career in the regular season and playoffs combined. When they guard one another, LeBron’s superior strength gives Durant real problems on both ends of the floor, while Durant’s length is less of an advantage against James than almost every other wing in the league. Everyone talks about LeBron and Kobe, but Durant is the more natural rival in terms of both age and position, and the fact of the matter is LeBron owns Durant.

Much has been made lately about how the Cavaliers would guard Russell Westbrook. Would Kyrie Irving start on him? Would J.R. Smith? Would Iman Shumpert or Matthew Dellavedova try to check Westbrook? All of those things would likely happen, but the biggest thing teams do when they guard Westbrook—or Durant, or LeBron, or Stephen Curry—is pray. No one is stopping Russell Westbrook, but Russell Westbrook. The best thing for the Cavs would be for Westbrook to get too three-happy and shoot the Thunder out of the game. There’s a far better chance this happens with Westbrook than it does with Curry, and Curry is just as likely as Westbrook to torch the Cavaliers’ guards, if not more so. There’s also the fact that Curry might be a better overall defender than Westbrook, as Westbrook’s constant gambling often has a negative impact to his team’s defense. Curry doesn’t have the defensive upside of Westbrook, but he tends to play smarter overall defense.

Another pro of playing the Thunder is that the Cavaliers could hide Kyrie on Andre Roberson or Dion Waiters while Smith, Shumpert, and Dellavedova take turns on Westbrook. Both Roberson and Waiters have played extremely well in this playoff run, but the Cavs will be content to let them shoot away, especially if it means fewer attempts for Durant and Westbrook. Waiters has begun to eliminate some of those off-balance long two-point attempts from his game, but it’s not hard to see him getting a bit trigger-happy if he’s being guarded by Irving on the biggest state of all. If he does, the Cavs will love it. On the other end of the floor, Westbrook hasn’t shown the consistent focus to stay with an off-ball threat like Smith, has been torched by Irving throughout Kyrie’s career, and simply ignores Dellavedova from deep, despite the latter being a career 39.8% shooter from beyond the arc. So while Westbrook would undoubtedly torch the Cavaliers at times, they are in a good position to get much of that back on the offensive end.

Meanwhile, Irving doesn’t really have a place to hide if the Cavaliers face the Warriors. The alternative to guarding Curry would likely be to put him on Harrison Barnes. While Barnes is likely to soon become one of the most overpaid players in the league, he’s still five inches taller and thirty-some pounds heavier than Irving, and has a better post game and outside shot than Roberson or Waiters. Barnes would be able to either shoot over Irving on the perimeter, or muscle his way to the basket against him with relative ease.
It gets worse when the Warriors go small. In that case, Kevin Love would likely have to guard Barnes with Andrew Bogut on the bench, and Irving would defend probably defend Andre Iguodala, another player who is much bigger and stronger than Irving. Iguodala isn’t the shooter that Curry or Barnes are, but he’s a tremendous playmaker, who still can get to the rim in the right matchups. Even if having to choose between Curry or Westbrook is a no-win situation, the Cavs would prefer Irving guarding Waiters or Roberson, than Barnes or Iguodala.

The frontcourt battles against the Thunder seem to be better matchups for the Cavaliers as well. Enes Kanter is a gifted scorer, and may be one of the few players in the league who is a better offensive rebounder than Tristan Thompson. He’s also a poor defender, who would likely give back on defense nearly everything he earns on offense, and probably more if he’s guarding Kevin Love. Steven Adams and Serge Ibaka are better rim protectors than anyone on the Cavaliers, and they will also be tough covers for Thompson, Love, and Channing Frye due to their superior size. The Thunder are also one of the best rebounding teams of the last 20 years, and one of the few teams that may have the advantage on the glass against the Cavaliers That being said, what happens when Tyronn Lue goes with the Frye-Love frontcourt? How can Ibaka and Adams protect the rim and chase those two around on the perimeter? Can Billy Donovan even play Kanter and Adams together against the Cavs? While it’s a tough matchup for the Cavaliers’ big men, it’s certainly one they can win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-P_8TQIyhY
The Warriors are a much rougher matchup if only because of Draymond Green. Love simply cannot guard Green’s combination of strength, speed, and playmaking, while Green is the kind of smart and strong defender who can minimize Love’s impact, if not take him out of the game entirely. Thompson has as good of a chance on Green as nearly any big man defender in the league, and he and Love are better rebounders than anyone on the Warriors. The Cavaliers’ superiority on the boards was critical as they battled the Warriors in the Finals last season. However, Thompson is a complete non-shooter and good teams will sag off him until he gets the ball right at the basket. With Green’s mobility and Andrew Bogut as their last line of defense, the Warriors are as well-prepared to do that as anyone. Frye is a tough cover for any Warrior big outside of Green, but he could also be exploited on the defensive end and on the glass. The debate for the Cavaliers will be whether they go more with Thompson’s superior rebounding and his ability to at least try to guard Green, or Frye’s outside shooting if they think that the Warriors will struggle with guarding both him and Love. How does the Irving-Smith-James-Love-Frye lineup match up with the Warriors’ Curry-Thompson-Iguodala-Barnes-Green Death Lineup? Given the latter lineup’s ability to move the ball and constantly switch on defense, probably not as well as Cleveland fans hope.

The most interesting matchup could be the Death Lineup against the Cavalier’s second unit of LeBron alongside Dellavedova, Shumpert, Richard Jefferson, and Frye. Dellavedova has done a respectable job guarding Curry, considering the standard, while Shumpert was tremendous guarding Thompson in last year’s Finals. Jefferson is strong enough to match up with Barnes, and despite winning last year’s Finals MVP, Iguodala can’t really stop James. This leaves Green on Frye. Frye would struggle with guarding Green, but would also pull him away from the basket on defense. Of course these lineups would likely feature lots of switching as the Warriors would try to get Green on Jefferson and leave Frye to Barnes, which the Cavaliers might also be happy with as Jefferson has been more successful guarding bigger players versus quicker ones. Just thinking about all of the ways these two lineups could try to exploit one another makes my head hurt…

Regardless of what happens Monday night in Oakland, the Cleveland Cavaliers are in the NBA Finals for the second year in a row and just the third time in the franchise’s forty-six year history. This time though, they’re ready to truly give it their best shot to end Cleveland’s 52-year playoff drought. After a regular season that was definitely more tumultuous than anyone could have expected, the Cavaliers are healthy and playing their best basketball since LeBron James returned two years ago. While the Thunder seem like the better matchup, it’s been no secret that the Cavs want the Warriors with both teams fully healthy. It’s understandable if that makes Cavalier fans nervous, or even scared about what could happen next, but this team has done everything they could to make us believe in them. They are as ready as we could hope for them to be, and if there’s one thing this postseason has taught us, it’s that all the predictions in the world don’t really matter. You have to play the game. Right now, the Cleveland Cavaliers are playing the game as well as anyone.