Will The Warriors Continue To Play The King Straight Up?
Judging by his raw anecdotal output, LeBron James had a performance for the ages. However, analytic advocates will quickly reference the King’s inefficient, ball-dominant brand of basketball en route to earning his Finals-high 44-point outburst.
In particular, despite delivering an avalanche of highly-contested interior makes, James achieved his points on a rather mundane 51.9 percent TS%* (true shooting percentage), which is the lowest mark for any 40-point scorer in an NBA playoff game since Michael Jordan in 1993.
*TS% = Points / (2 * (FG Attempts + 0.44 * FT Attempts))
James also attempted a career playoff-high 38 field goal attempts on Thursday night.
However, it would be disingenuous to shoulder the blame on LeBron; as for the entirety of the game, the Warriors forced the King to evolve into a bashful scorer.
More specifically, the Dubs primarily played James with one primary defender while packing the boxes and elbows by zoning up the strongside with their center. Meanwhile, for the most part, Golden State’s other battalion of perimeter defenders stayed glued onto the Cavs’ spot-up snipers.
Not surprisingly, Cleveland only generated three hockey assists in Game 1, which pales in comparison to the Warriors’ eight. More importantly, their scheme forced James to heave up a field goal attempt on approximately 80.8 percent of his 26 isolation opportunities on Thursday night.
But even with their arduous efforts to keep LeBron out of the paint, while eradicating his passing options, James still managed to bulldoze his way into the teeth of the defense — where he converted on 11-of-16 of his in-the-paint field goal attempts.
Most notably, James was able to tyrannize Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson on the block by leveraging the defensive three second rule.
Namely, LeBron often cerebrally anticipates when the opposing big’s time as a strongside helper is up, and attack accordingly in a timely manner as the aforementioned rim protector retreats out of the paint.
Moreover, Timothy Mozgov feasted on such a scheme, repeatedly diving towards the basket unimpededly as the entire defense set their unequivocal and collective attention on the four-time MVP.
Down the stretch, though, the Warriors’ resident defensive specialist, Andre Iguodala, was able to slow LeBron down.
His combination of length, strength, and quickness gave James some troubles, forcing the Chosen One to settle for contested outside Js. And if Draymond Green can stay out of foul trouble in Game 2, the duo of Iggy and Green should continue to make LeBron’s isolation forays a highly-difficult task.
It will be interesting to see how LeBron make out in his archaic individual battles versus Iguodala and Green going forward.
Next: Paging J.R. Swish