Golden State Warriors: 10 Keys To Beating The Cleveland Cavaliers

2. Small-Ball Adjustments

The Cavs haven’t used Timofey Mozgov in the rotation for quite some time and have been rolling with Tristan Thompson and stretch-5 Channing Frye at the center spot. The Dubs are notorious for their small-ball “Lineup of Death,” which outscored opponents by 166 points over 172 minutes together during the regular season.

Don’t be surprised to see both of these teams go extremely small for long periods of time in this series, especially after the Thunder shocked the world by proving that Lineup of Death was not invincible.

To be fair, the Cavs don’t have the same length OKC did when they go small, nor do they have bigs like Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka and Kevin Durant who could mostly contain Curry on switches out of pick and rolls.

But here’s where things get interesting. When the Dubs go with their Curry-Thompson-Iggy-Barnes-Green lineup, they’ll be making it hard for Lue to play Thompson, someone who can’t space the floor and possibly can’t stick with Green’s playmaking despite being a solid defender.

But if Thompson can keep up with a more complacent Draymond, he could really hurt the undersized Warriors on the offensive glass on the other end. And even if that’s not the case, the Cavs would turn to Channing Frye, a stretch-5 who would present a major challenge for a Warriors defense keying in on stopping LeBron’s penetration.

Iggy won’t happen stopping LeBron one-on-one for a full seven-game series, and if Green hasn’t made Kevin Love unplayable by that point, Cleveland may actually have the personnel to match Golden State’s small-ball lineups and spread their defense on the other end.

It’s all about exploiting the matchups. When Love is in, put him through the blender of pick-and-rolls and don’t leave him wide open on offense. When Thompson is in, go super small to make him defend the perimeter and don’t let him dominate the offensive glass. When Frye is in, be wary of his three-point shot, but make him defend the three-point line on the other end.

If Lue is able to strike the perfect balance between offense and defense against Golden State’s small-ball units, he may actually have a fair amount depth to work with — a potential advantage for a Warriors team whose greatest advantage comes with going small and leaving Bogut sidelined.

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That’s quite a big “if” though, and it seems unlikely the Cavs can get away with playing Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love and Channing Frye for too long over the more defensively inclined Matthew Dellavedova, Iman Shumpert and Tristan Thompson in an ultra small-ball lineup, which would obviously hurt the offense.

The Warriors will have to battle through fatigue in either case though, and Kerr can’t hesitate to play Livingston, Leandro Barbosa and maybe even Brandon Rush and Marreese Speights in a series featuring a heavy dose of small-ball.

In other words, Kerr has to be ready to think on his toes in a series where the Lineup of Death will have to play heavy minutes — especially if Lue makes adjustments centered around his TT/Love/Frye frontcourt that could give Golden State fits depending on the matchups.

Next: No. 1