Tag: Draymond Green

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Are the Warriors Too Good For the Cavaliers?

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

After Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the most talked about person surrounding the Warriors-Cavaliers showdown in Oakland wasn’t Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, or LeBron James.

It was Rihanna.

The fact that the Barbadian singer stole the headlines away from the game itself shows that the contest couldn’t have been all that competitive.

Sure enough, it wasn’t. The Warriors easily took care of the Cavaliers, 113-91, in a game that was never truly in doubt after halftime. Kevin Durant led the way for Golden State with 38 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists; even more impressively, Durant did all of this without committing a turnover, becoming the first player to have 30 points and five assists without a turnover in a Finals game since Michael Jordan accomplished that feat in Game 1 of the 1997 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz. Steph Curry poured in another 28 points on 6-of-11 shooting from beyond the arc.

LeBron James paced the Cavaliers with 28 points, 15 rebounds, and eight assists, and Kyrie Irving scored 24. As strange as this may sound, the individual performances of James and Irving were not nearly as good as their numbers would suggest, as the Cavaliers were -18 when both players were on the floor last night. The Cavaliers were thoroughly dismantled in the second half, and their defense had no answers for the Warriors’ multi-pronged attack, which was centered around Curry and Durant.

Cleveland’s performance in Game 1 begs an important question: is this version of the Warriors too good for these Cavaliers to beat in a seven-game series?

Let’s start by stating the obvious: the Cavaliers played far from their best game last night. The team combined to shoot just under 35% from the field (30 for 86) and made just 11 of 31 attempts from the three-point line. Cleveland’s turnover problem was exacerbated by the Warriors offense, which turned the ball over just four times in 48 minutes. The Warriors had a really, really good night and the Cavaliers…. well, let’s just say they didn’t. That being said, it is worth examining whether or not Cleveland’s struggles are an anomaly or a disturbing trend.

For example, the Cavs’ transition defense is something that can be fixed. Take this play from late in the first half last night. Watch as the seas part for Durant to finish the fast break with a thunderous slam (pun 100% intended):

If I’m Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue, I would play that clip on loop for the next 48+ hours before Game 2. The Warriors finished Game 1 with 56 points in the paint and could’ve had closer to 70 had they not missed or, in the case of Zaza Pachulia, passed up on several open layups. The Cavalier defense was so concerned about the Warriors’ vast array of shooters (Curry, Klay Thompson, even Draymond Green) that they completely neglected to protect the rim. This strategy, one that basically rejects every fundamental tenet of basketball defense, turned Game 1 of the NBA Finals into Kevin Durant’s own personal dunk contest. That strategy can definitely be adjusted/fixed before Sunday night’s Game 2 rolls around.

But the Cavaliers must sort out other issues if they want to win their second championship in as many years.

Even though James and Irving are the undisputed leaders of the Cavs’ attack, the team simply needs contributions from other sources in order to be successful. For example, Kevin Love shot just four-of-thirteen from the field last night and had quite possibly the quietest 21-rebound performance in NBA history. J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson, Cleveland’s other two starters, combined for just three points and one made field goal on seven attempts.

That’s not all, though, for the Cavaliers’ individual struggles. Deron Williams, who scored fourteen points in seventeen minutes in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Celtics, struggled to get anything going last night. Williams’ game was so truly awful that he amassed a whopping offensive rating of ten (offensive rating is a measure of how many points a player accounts for per 100 possessions while he is on the floor). In case you haven’t figured it out, ten points per 100 possessions isn’t that good. Similarly, sharpshooter Kyle Korver, acquired from the Hawks in a midseason trade to give the Cavs more of a perimeter presence off the bench, accrued an offensive rating of 21 in nineteen minutes; he didn’t score in the game.

The Cavaliers simply cannot survive the Warriors’ merciless onslaught without contributions from their secondary pieces. While Irving is one of the best point guards in the league and James is the best player on the planet, they cannot singlehandedly carry the Cavs to their second straight championship. Players like Williams, Love, Korver, Smith, and Thompson must stretch Golden State’s defense with their perimeter shooting if the Cavaliers want to take this series deep.

There’s also this to consider: the Warriors should have an off night offensively at some point in this series, as even an offense as talented as Golden State’s is prone to go cold from time to time. Last night, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green combined to shoot 6-for-28 from the field and score just fifteen points. However, both made an impact on the defensive end; Thompson performed the unenviable task of guarding Irving while Green held an 85 defensive rating in his 36 minutes of action (with the defensive rating statistic, a lower number equates to better performance). Near the end of last night’s game, FiveThirtyEight writer Chris Herring pointed out the difference in the teams’ supporting casts:

It’s true; while Thompson and Green struggled mightily on the offensive end, they still impacted the game with what they were able to do defensively. The Cavaliers’ other pieces have not been able to do that, and how did they impact Game 1 when their shots weren’t falling? Answer: they didn’t.

Granted, the Warriors played extremely well in Game 1. Their four turnovers tied for the fewest in NBA Finals history and conventional wisdom would think that the performance will be difficult to replicate. But consider this: for all of the praise Golden State’s offense is getting today (and deservedly so), they only shot 42.5% from the field last night. For as well as they performed on the game’s biggest stage, they had far from their most efficient game of the season. That’s part of why I picked them to win the series; even on a bad night, they can still destroy you offensively. And while last night wouldn’t necessarily qualify as a bad night, the numbers show that they can play even better than they are right now. That is a frightening and scary thought for Cleveland to wrestle with.

The Cavaliers have fixable, albeit major, problems to rectify before they hit the Oracle Arena floor for Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night. They need their bench to produce and their shooters to start hitting from behind the three-point line. They also need to play better transition defense, and they can accomplish that by simply standing in front of the player with the basketball at that particular time.

And they need to quickly make these adjustments to save the NBA Finals from turning into Kevin Durant/Jeff Van Gundy vs. Rihanna.

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The NBA Finals Is Upside Down, So Let’s Just Enjoy It

lebron james game 6 stats nba finals 2016 points rebounds assists steals
Photo Credit: Getty Images

Nothing easy… we’re going to Game Seven baby!  Game Seven! GAME SEVENNNNNNNN! – Zaza Pachulia

I’m going to say something I never thought I’d say.  It took a long time to get to this point, but since we’re here, I might as well tell the truth.

I give up trying to figure out these NBA Finals.  The twists, the turns, the mouthpiece tosses.  I really don’t know how Game 7 will go and I’m still trying to figure out how we got here.  It’s not worth it to sort out the particulars of the first six games of this series because the Finals actually makes less sense to me when I do.

But we can at least try to decipher the first six games and look ahead to Sunday night’s Game 7.  The key word: try.

For one thing, we’ve found our Finals MVP.  Ironically, it’s the same person that should’ve won the award last year: LeBron James.  He’s actually leading every statistical category in this series, as noted by ESPN Stats and Info:

James has so clearly been the best player on the floor in this series.  Moreover, no player on the Warriors has distinguished himself nearly enough to wrest the award away from him, and that holds true even if Golden State wins Game 7.  If you’re only watching the Finals and didn’t follow the regular season, you would think that LeBron was the unanimous MVP and not Steph Curry.  That’s saying something.

And there’s more bad news for the Warriors.  Andre Iguodala, last year’s Finals MVP and primary LeBron defender, suffered a back injury in last night’s game.  While he’s definitely going to play on Sunday, his health may be the difference in the game. There’s another thing I never thought I’d say.

And Iguodala’s injury has other ramifications, too.  The Warriors are already thin in the frontcourt, with Andrew Bogut out for the Finals with a knee injury.  Without his minutes and the normal services of Iguodala, players like Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes would likely have to spend more time guarding James.

Green may be able to hold his own, but the bigger question mark is Barnes.  After I wrote about how Barnes would need to play better for the Warriors to win a championship, he promptly had the worst game of his life in Game 6.  Barnes went for 0 offensive rebounds, 0 assists, and 0 points last night.  This is hard to do (especially as a starter), but the legitimately did nothing on the offensive end of the floor.  So who knows where his mind is right now.

Yet another issue for the Warriors comes from an unlikely source: Steph Curry.  The back-to-back MVP struggled with foul trouble in Game 6, fouling out for the first time this season. After his sixth foul, he had this memorable reaction.  He would assuredly like to forget it:

Soon after Steph fouled out, his wife, Ayesha, tweeted out this thought.  I don’t even know what to say about it that would correctly encapsulate its stupidity:

Ayesha Curry puts out a theory (via Twitter).

Ironically, after saying she “won’t be silent”, she deleted the tweet.  It was a good move, as the tweet only received at least 28,758 retweets.  It’s not like the whole world saw it or anything.

But, regardless of his wife’s thoughts, Steph needs to stay out of foul trouble in Game 7.  The Warriors need his offense on the floor to win their second straight championship.  Even though he’s been outplayed by Kyrie Irving in this series, he is still capable of going off at any particular time.  His chances of doing so are exponentially greater if he doesn’t have to go to the bench with early foul woes.

And then there’s the issue of the Warriors’ “death lineup”.  While it had flourished earlier in the series, it was outscored 27-9 in Game 6.  Part of that is the injury to Iguodala, but the Cavs deserve a great deal of credit here.  On multiple occasions, the team used pick and roll action to switch Curry or Klay Thompson on James.  Curry’s foul trouble, combined with LeBron’s massive height and strength advantage over both players, led to several easy baskets for Cleveland.

The other problem is that without Bogut’s rim protection, the Warriors have no way of stopping these switches.  If Green (who plays center in the death lineup) helps on LeBron, he leaves Tristan Thompson open.  Because Bron is such a good passer and Thompson is so good at cutting toward the basket, the result often ends in an alley-oop dunk, as it did several times in Game 6.

Golden State has several issues.  These issues are so significant that they may make the difference in this series.  But this is about more than the Warriors; it’s also about LeBron.

We’ll never know why James was so much less assertive in the first four games as compared to his last two.  However, since he and Kyrie Irving decided to take things into their own hands the last two games, the Cavaliers have been a totally different team.

There is one Cavalier player, though, who could seriously step things up in Game 7: Kevin Love.  Last night, Love only played 12 minutes, plagued by foul trouble and ineffectiveness.  At this point, Tyronn Lue may want to bring Love off the bench outright, as he’s only getting role player minutes in his current capacity.  Richard Jefferson once again stepped into his role and outplayed him, and he may be worthy of the Game 7 nod.  Then again, the Cavs got here with Love, so their allegiance to him in their starting lineup is very understandable.

At this point, I’m about out of ways to figure out this series.  I don’t know how we’re here, with the greatest regular season team in NBA history on the verge of the worst collapse the league has ever seen.  But this series really is even; both teams have scored 610 points over the course of the last six games.  In spite of the fact that none of the games have been within single digits, the NBA Finals is as even as it could be.

I have a feeling Game 7 is going to be epic.  It will pit the league’s two biggest stars against one another in a winner-take-all bout to determine legacies and history.  I’ve given up trying to figure out this series, so I’m going to enjoy Sunday night’s game as the culmination of a fascinating NBA season.

You should too.

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Why Athletes Don’t Trust the Media

Photo Credit: AP Images
Photo Credit: AP Images

The Golden State Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets 121-94 on Sunday to take a 3-1 lead in their first-round series.  To many in the city of Houston, though, the game was an afterthought.

Ravaging floods have recently affected the city, killing at least eight and forcing over 1,000 to leave their homes.  The rainfall is a serious matter as it has caused over $5 billion in property damage across the city.  Therefore, you can understand why Houstonians aren’t exactly worried about their Rockets right now.

But that didn’t stop a reporter from asking Draymond Green a question about the parallels between the flood and the Warriors’ road wins in the city in each of the past two playoffs.  Instead of deflecting this ridiculous inquiry, Green took the time to wonderfully excoriate whoever this “reporter” is:

The question was easily the dumbest I’ve ever heard.  Trying to create similarities between the team’s 21 threes and a life-threatening natural disaster is never a good way to go about your business as a so-called “journalist”.  Yes, you’re there to ask questions and get more than just cliched responses out of the players, but you’re also supposed to make informed, relevant, pointed inquiries.  That question had none of those qualities.

And yet, upon hearing the tirade, I had a different thought: would it have been better for Green to just say “next question” and move on? Did Green’s destruction of the reporter actually shift attention away from the question and toward the player ranting about it?

We’ve seen reporters ask stupid questions before, especially in the NBA.  During the 2014 NBA Finals, local reporter Bobby Ramos made a name for himself for all the wrong reasons.  After the Spurs’ 111-92 defeat of the Heat in Game 3, Ramos got his chance to question LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.  This is what he asked in his 15 seconds of fame:

I have no idea what Ramos was trying to accomplish by way of that question.  Translated, this is what he asked: “Is the problem that you’re not scoring enough or that you’re giving up too many points?” Basically, it sounded like Ramos wanted to know if it was important for one team to score more points than the other.  In my brief experience with the game of basketball, it is.  But that’s just my perspective.

It was a question that James and Wade wasted little time with.  They both chuckled and Wade answered that the team was down 2-1 and that was the big problem.  Really, huh?  I’m sure that’s a piece of information that fans would not have previously known.

That wasn’t all the press conference fireworks for that series, however.  Before game 4, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich sat down at the podium and fielded this bizarre query from another Miami-area reporter:

While Popovich gets criticized sometimes (and rightfully so) for his excessive brevity with reporters, he did nothing wrong by shooting down this question.  The team was coming off one of the most dominant performances in NBA Finals history in game 3; a repeat of that level of play would assuredly be good enough to win game 4.  So why on Earth would the team change anything?  What is there to change?  Again, this is an example of a question that was not thought out in advance, one that ended with a verbal smackdown that ended faster than you could say “five championships”.

But which response is better: the ignorance of the question or the flaming of the reporter who asked it?  The answer depends on the situation.

For example, Green was asked a question about flooding, a life-threatening situation.  He and the Warriors were also coming off a game in which they lost soon-to-be-MVP Stephen Curry to a knee injury; Curry will miss at least two weeks with an MCL sprain.  That loss, combined with the stupidity of the question asked, created a perfect storm for Draymond to react the way he did.

On the other hand, Popovich, Wade, and James were asked questions about the game itself.  Granted, they were absurd lines of questioning, but they had to do with the comparatively trivial subject of sports and nothing greater.  Because of this, it was easier for them to deflect the questions as nothing more than unprepared reporting.  However, it would have been understandable if they had reacted to the silly questioning like Jay-Z probably reacted to Lemonade; that is to say, not well.

There’s another side to the story, though, and that’s the side of the reporter.  Obviously, not all sports journalists ask questions so hollow and uninformed.  There are plenty of reporters who ask fair, challenging, tough questions that back interview subjects into corners.  For example, take this exchange that then-CNN personality Rachel Nichols had with Roger Goodell over a year ago:

There, Nichols asked a very relevant question: why does the NFL refer to their investigations as “independent” if they are still paying the “private investigators”?  The commissioner immediately got defensive with Nichols, saying that he didn’t agree with her assertion and even pointing out that she won’t be paying for the league’s investigations.   The exchange was a demonstration of excellent journalism and how a prepared, reasonable question could put one of the most powerful people in sports on his heels.

That being said, not enough of those informed questions (and people) comprise the sports media today.  Too many times, athletes are asked ignorant questions at press conferences, flip out on the reporters asking them, and are blamed by the partial media for doing so.  In reality, it isn’t their fault; they push themselves to their physical and mental limits each and every day.  To have second-rate journos interrogate them this way is, in some ways, a little insulting.

The relationship between athletes, coaches, and the media is an interesting one.  The players and coaches feel that they should be given more space while the media wants unfettered access into their lives.  Their relationship is lukewarm, at best.

And with questions like the one posed to Draymond Green last night, it’s hard to see it improving anytime soon.