OAKLAND — Hunkered down in their respective film rooms formulating game plans, head coaches Steve Kerr and Tyronn Lue should come to a consensus: pick battles you can win.
The NBA Finals will be a feeling out process with clumps of strategies to sort through. The Warriors very well may sag off the three-point line at home in Games 1 and 2, baiting these new-look Cavaliers into a shooting contest. This year Cleveland has its own lineup piece to counter Golden State’s small ball flexibility: Channing Frye. Lue must be mindful of matching up shooting specialist Kevin Love with tenacious bulldog Draymond Green. Kerr must be selective about how much he plays Harrison Barnes.
As the planning process winds down, both coaches are wasting their time if they try and come up with some elaborate scheme to stop Steph Curry and LeBron James.
Lue can allocate every resource possible to barricade the three-point line, including putting the 6-foot-9 James on Steph, and it won’t matter. Curry is going to launch his trademarked high-arching shot, and he’ll likely drop 30 points every night. Now in his second NBA Finals appearance, the nerves we saw a year ago early in the series shouldn’t unsettle the MVP. Use a coffee-induced Matthew Dellavedova this year, if you dare.
It’s the same story with LeBron. Kerr will use a combination of Andre Iguodala and Green to combat the world’s most dominant athletic force. But LeBron is going to do LeBron things — you just hope and pray he’s shooting the basketball from the outside more than driving to the hoop. James knows he won’t have to average 35.8 points per game and play hero-ball like he did in 2015, but he’s still going to get his.
So if and when Curry and LeBron cancel each other out in this series, it’ll be their running mates that determine whether Golden State is in the midst of a dynasty, or whether Cleveland can scale the mountain and produce the city’s first championship in 52 years.
And there’s no telling who will be the better all-around player in crucial moments: Klay Thompson or Kyrie Irving.
Nobody in the Western Conference is having a better postseason than Thompson. And nobody is more battle-tested. Coming off wins in his individual matchups with James Harden, Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook, Thompson has willed the Warriors back to the NBA Finals. How many more superstar players does he have to outclass to get the proper respect around the league? It’s actually his tenacious defensive approach that has given opponents fits, especially the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals.
And he’ll relish the chance to guard a healthy Irving.
This postseason, Irving’s 30.3 percent usage rating on offense is higher than LeBron’s; the basketball stays in Kyrie’s hands. Stopping Irving is more of a mind game than it is a physical test. According to ESPN, Irving is in the 92nd percentile in the NBA on scoring plays when he’s cutting to the basket. He’s at his worst when he’s a spot up shooter, with an ineffective 56th percentile ranking.
Thompson’s plan on defense should be to smother Irving once he crosses half court, getting the basketball out of his hands and in a less advantageous position to cut and drive to the bucket. Irving was unstoppable as a three-point shooter in the Eastern Conference Semis, bamboozling Atlanta on a 12/18 shooting clip from behind the arc. It was another story in the Eastern Conference Finals against Toronto, where in two losses he kept pressing and went a combined 4/15 and directly contributed to Cleveland’s unraveling. Like we mentioned above, baiting Irving into a shooting contest is definitely in Kerr’s deck of cards.
As for Thompson on offense, he’s in search of some redemption this time around in the Finals. Take away a 34-point performance in Game 2 a year ago, and the 26-year-old averaged just 12.2 points on the game’s biggest stage. Obviously every circumstance is different this time around, but if a cold spell comes back, the Warriors will be dead in the water. Where spot-up shooting is Irving’s nemesis, it’s Thompson’s knack. He devastated the Thunder with his catch-and-shoot abilities, picking his spots from all over the floor while Golden State dissected Oklahoma City’s defense with rapid ball movement. When Curry is hitting treys, a lot of the time it’s isolation. When Thompson sets up his launching pad, the whole offense gets involved.
With a full stable this year, it’ll be intriguing to find out who marks Thompson. Iman Shumphert is Cleveland’s most talented perimeter defender, but he gives the team virtually nothing on offense — averaging just 3.5 points per game this postseason. That means it’ll likely be J.R. Smith (speaking of people who need an NBA Finals redemption) tasked with the challenge.
Will the 30-year-old Smith have the energy to not only guard Thompson, but also remain an effective sharpshooter? In all of Cleveland’s three postseason series, Smith has had a game where he bangs home at least six triples and gives the Cavs a momentum boost. Cleveland wants Smith on the court, but may pay the price if he can’t handle Thompson. If the Cavs really find themselves in a jam, they have the flexibility to put LeBron on Thompson.
Two weeks from now, we’ll all be talking about whether Steph Curry protected his throne as the league’s best player from a surging LeBron, or if James finally breaks down the barrier and delivers a title to his desperate hometown.
But as the series unfolds, nothing will matter more than the matchup of Klay Thompson vs. Kyrie Irving.