D'Z, what's are your thoughts on the Cavs/Finals? Good match-up, bad match-up?
I don't think their defense is good enough to beat us 4 times, particularly their pick & roll defense. The Curry/Dray 1/4pnr should be unstoppable against scrubs like Love and Frye. People thought I was nuts when I said this at the time last season, but I really think the Cavs only took 2 games from GS last year because of the injuries to Kyrie and Love. That forced them to completely change the way they approached the series. LeBron completely took that series over tempo-wise and he was able to grind things to a halt. Because of the injuries to Irving and Love, superior defenders like Shump, Moz and Delly were given extended minutes and it caused the Warriors some problems.
Cavs' fans battle cry is of course "we won 2 games without our players, so now we'll be better off with them!". Decent logic on paper, but now, under Tyronn Lue, the Cavs are playing smaller.. faster.. and shooting more 3s. Sounds a lot like a team I know. So while the Cavs undoubtedly have maximized their own team's potential by playing this way, styles make fights. The Cavs were successful last year because LeBron became the game manager and the pace of the series was much slower than GS wants. Now you have the Cavs playing well, but in a style that favors the Warriors.
The main problem for Cleveland is defense. While all of the Warriors rotation players sans Mo Speights (who is a fringe rotation player) are sound defenders, the Cavs have a few weak spots in their rotation. Kyrie Irving is known for being weak at getting through screens. Red flag. Love has already been benched against GS earlier this year because he couldn't defend anyone in the pnr. Frye can't defend. JR has a lot of lapses we can take advantage of. The way the Cavs have been hurting people is by having Irving and James attack the rim and either scoring or drawing extra defenders and kicking out to the shooters Smith/Love/Frye/ect. What I believe the game plan will be for GS is to try and stick to the shooters on the outside and let Iguodala work 1 on 1 against LeBron and force him to beat us with his scoring instead of getting going as a passer. Same for Kyrie, don't send help and let Klay do what he can to stop him. Because the fact is even if both of those guys are going, Cleveland is going to have their hands full trying to defend what GS brings to the table and I can't see any way around that for them. This is Draymond's big chance to redeem himself for a sloppy WCF because outside of LeBron they don't have anyone that matches up well with him defensively.
A lot of people think Delly is a potential answer... lol. He sucks offensively and is overrated defensively. I hope the Cavs try to give him a bunch of run and take an elite shooter like Smith off the floor. Irving and Delly together in the back court is crap. Steph and Klay will shit on that. Even playing shitty teams in the East the Cavs have an average defensive rating this postseason. I just can't picture a scenario where they can shut the Dubs down with defense. Their only hope is to outgun us 4 times... and again, good luck.
Dubs in 5 or 6.. I hope for 6 so we can celebrate on their home floor again. Fuck Cleveland.