Fox Sports’ Nick Wright, believer in all things LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, joined The Audible on 1050 on Monday morning to forecast the rest of the NBA Finals and share his thoughts on Cleveland’s chances of beating Golden State in Game 5.
Spoiler alert: Wright has faith in the Cavs. He even went so far as to let the guys from The Audible know that he’s booked his return trip to Ohio for a potential Game 6.
“I literally have already bought my flight to go back to Cleveland for Game 6,” Wright said.
He went on to say that although Monday night will likely be the toughest game of the series for the Cavs to win, the pressure on the Warriors to avoid a repeat of last season’s blown 3-1 lead will only add more pressure to the team as the Finals go on.
Wright offered an interesting strategy suggestion for Cavs coach Tyronn Lue, saying he should switch up his rest strategy for LeBron.
“One thing that Tyronn Lue has not done that I think you’ve gotta do is, if you’re going to rest LeBron, you have to do it at the end of the first quarter instead of the beginning of the second. And the reason you’ve gotta do it then is because when you rest LeBron, you have to then play at a snail’s pace on offense, 20 to 24 seconds each time. And on the flip side, once the Warriors cross half court, go hack-a-whomever. When LeBron’s on the bench, you have to go hack-a-whomever on defense… But you can’t do that if you rest him at the beginning of a quarter, because the other team’s not in the bonus.”
Wright said Andre Iguodala, Zaza Pachulia and JaVale McGee are all valid targets for Cleveland to intentionally foul in these situations, despite Pachulia’s 13-for-17 free throw mark in the playoffs.
We’ll see if Lue does actually do anything different in resting LeBron tonight, because those stretches are when the Warriors have been able to do some serious damage in these Finals. The full interview is available below. To listen to Wright boldly talk about his preemptive travel plans, jump to the 1:15 mark. To hear him talk about the intentional foul strategy, skip to 9:15.