It wasn’t orthodox or pretty, but Golden State’s trouncing of the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals left one thing clear: This is most definitely their series to lose.
On a night when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson combined to score fewer points than either of them averaged individually during the season, Cleveland was still utterly dominated throughout most of this game. Now Cleveland must go back to the drawing board and prepare for what will hopefully be a much more competitive Game 2. Here’s a look at what went wrong for the Cavaliers in Game 1 and the changes that Coach Tyronn Lue will be looking to make.
The obvious game plan for the Cleveland Cavaliers on the defensive end heading into this game was simple: If we are going to lose this game, it will not be at the hands of Curry and Thompson.
And lose they did.
This defensive game plan led to unreasonably open shots for other Golden State players such as Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green and uncontested layups for Shaun Livingston. It’s obvious that the Cavs can’t afford to stick with the same tactic again, which will mean changing how they guard Curry on pick and rolls and their transition defense as a whole. The Cavs will be forced out of double teaming picks like they were in Game 1 and will probably resort more to switching, hoping that LeBron can contain Curry and cause problems with his length similar to how Durant did last series.
In transition, on Thursday it seemed that every defender wearing red seemed more worried about finding the Splash Brothers than actually stopping the other three offensive players who, more often than not, were in a much more threatening position on the court than the two shooters every Cleveland defender was so worried about. These little changes might allow for more points from Curry and Thompson, but it must be done. As good of shooters as those two are, as long as they are at least contested, a shot from them might be better than the seemingly unguarded shots (some even layups) that happened throughout the entirety of Game 1.
What should be done on the offensive end for Cleveland carries a much bigger question mark behind it. The offense was stagnant, no mismatch seemed apparent and no one player was able to find a groove throughout the night.
The most apparent problem throughout the game, though, was that Cleveland’s Big Three — made up of Kyrie Irving, LeBron James and Kevin Love — tried to do too much. Throughout the night, those three combined for 60 of the team’s 89 shots, but only made 23 of them. Shots were forced early in possessions by Love, James and Irving as they seemed happier to shoot a hard shot themselves than to reset the offense in hopes for a better one later in the clock or to kick to a much more open teammate.
What to do about this, though, is a difficult question that even Coach Lue probably doesn’t have an answer for. Every member of this Cleveland team knows that they are where they are now because of the excellent offensive play of their three stars and that it would be ridiculous to try to limit any one of them in any way. Look for Coach Lue to implement a few plays early in the next game to try to get J.R. Smith open looks to take some of the burden off the Big Three and hopefully spread the floor to open up more driving lanes for Irving and James to take advantage of.
But, beyond that, there is little Coach Lue can do; The Big Three for Cleveland just needs to be better. It’s as simple as that.