Hawk-Lock":3ft2kez4 said:
I think the one problem the Cavs could have is that a lot of their guys aren't 2-way players. Kyrie, JR Smith, and Love are all average defenders at best. Most people consider Kyrie and Love below average defenders. Whereas pretty much everyone on the Warriors who plays significant minutes is a 2-way player with maybe the exception of Curry who is an average defender. It will be interesting to see how the Cavs matchup with GS. I'd assume they will try to hide Kyrie by putting him on Barnes/Iguodala, LeBron will likely defend Klay, and then use a mixture of JR Smith/Dellvedova/Schumpert on Curry. While Draymond hasn't been much of an offensive threat, Love will struggle to guard him out on the perimeter.
And that one problem is one huge problem.
When Draymond Green gets going, the Warriors offense takes on a whole different look. Then they can beat you inside and out. Ibaka and Adams kept Draymond in check, and I would even go as far to say that Adams lived deep inside of Green's head the entire series. Kevin Love is absolutely not going to do that. And if Cleveland tries to hide Love on an Iguodala/Barnes/Speights/Bogut/Ezeli .. that's still a very awful matchup for them.
Kind of why I said in my previous post that while getting Kyrie and Love on this floor should give them more of an offensive threat, I almost feel like thats immediately negated by how poor they are on defense.
The Cavs are going to need huge series from Channing Frye and JR Smith if they are to win the title. Frye I believe is the one true mismatch the Cavs may have in this series, as he can stretch the floor and should have quite a few looks from downtown with all the attention on everyone else. But if Curry gets going, how long can Lue leave Smith out there while keeping his best defensive guards (Delly and Shump) on the bench? A barrage of offensive guys helps you when you face Detroit, Atlanta and Toronto. The best offensive team in the last 20 years? Not so much.
That said.. where the Cavs are weak, the Warriors are very, very strong. I bet if they were allowed to say who they preferred to face.. they'd have picked OKC 10 times out of 10. They just matched up a LOT better with OKC than they do GS.