Warriors vs. Cavs: Dissecting Game Five of the NBA Finals

There are lots of ways to unpack Sunday’s Game Five but the most incredible may be this: The Golden State Warriors are one win away from an NBA Championship despite not playing their best basketball in any game of the series (so far).

-== Top 11 Steph Curry Moments Of His Career ==-

To put it mildly, winning the title without that dominant performance for more than a quarter would be remarkable. We have seen what this Warriors team can do at their best, from their demolition of the Clippers at Oracle early in the season that sent Doc Rivers into a frenzy to creating a half of garbage time against the Rockets in Game Three of the Western Conference Finals. Some may see this line of thinking as a dig on the Warriors but it should be considered as just the opposite since being so good that they can win without their A-game is a level very few teams can reach in the playoffs.

One player who did turn in one of those trademark games is Stephen Curry. After a series where Cleveland’s schemes and effort limited the MVP more than expected early on in the Finals, Steph finally broke free and propelled Golden State to a great offensive game. The Warriors shot 48% from the field and 46.2% from three, with much of the credit going to Curry’s shooting and passing. After two playoffs of getting stymied by traps and ball denials, Steph has improved his game to the point where he can beat those tactics and give teammates a great chance to succeed if the defense commits enough resources to him. Many of Draymond’s six assists can be directly attributed to this attention as the Green/Curry pick and roll success played a major role in deciding this game. Beyond his distribution skills, Curry also shot the heck out of the ball. As LeBron James said after the game, many of the shots and plays Steph made were simply amazing offense that the Cavs could not counter. A player doing a crossover into a stepback three is unguardable filth in the best way possible. As much as I love defense, a dominant offensive player can just beat great defense. The Baby-Faced Assassin was that guy in Game Five.

Jun 14, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA;  Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Another unfathomable element of Game Five: Golden State won a game where the player I chose for Defensive Player of the Year this season was a healthy scratch and it was a justifiable decision. Once the team unleashed their double-heavy strategy on Timofey Mozgov and Coach David Blatt pulled his second-best player (which again, I mostly had no problem with), the Warriors had to take advantage of their opportunity while also ensuring that Blatt did not bring Mozgov back for an extended period. Like Cleveland accomplished earlier in the series, Golden State functionally created a healthy scratch of a talented player through strategic brilliance and excellence in execution. Coach Kerr using Festus Ezeli over Bogut for limited minutes made some sense as it could be hard for Andrew to get loose enough for spur of the moment playing time. Regardless, the margin between the centers is big but not large enough to make a meaningful difference when they combine for three minutes played.

This game featured more excellent adjustments by the coaching staff. Doubling Mozgov was a great touch since he has never faced that kind of attention during his NBA career and got the dominant Russian off the floor early. That change forced Cleveland to have their only four rotation-level perimeter players on the floor at the same time, which cannot happen for long because everyone except LeBron James is a human being that requires rest. The Cavs got a surprisingly solid 13 minutes from Mike Miller and one strong quarter from JR Smith that actually kept them in this one but it was not nearly enough. One other small but important tweak that Mike Prada noticed was that after the Warriors were getting hung up on pindowns early in the game leading to open JR Smith looks, they started switching them. After bringing Cleveland back with eight points on 3/5 shooting in the first quarter, Smith had six points on 2/10 shooting in the final three quarters.

Even though the Warriors have outplayed the Cavs for two games straight and get Cleveland on short rest again for Game Six, it still feels like the series comes back to Oakland for a Game Seven. Coach Kerr talked after the game about how closeout games are often the hardest in playoff series and I fully expect that to be the case here. The Warriors should try to blow the doors off Cleveland early because this Cavs team is like the Alex Smith 49ers- built for holding leads rather than coming back from deficits. Employing some presses and ball denials could help too, especially if LeBron tries to play all 48 minutes or close to it.

Stray notes from Game Five:

– Harrison Barnes had an insanely fitting game for him. Through three quarters, he produced two eye-popping plays that happened to be the only two times he was truly assertive on offense. Barnes then had an incredibly impactful fourth quarter with four offensive rebounds that helped break the game open. Despite having six offensive rebounds (ten total) and taking seven shots, the NBA player tracking data showed Barnes had only 13 touches in the entire game. Remarkable.

-Another unspectacular game from Klay Thompson. I talked earlier about how amazing it is that the Warriors have won three games without a dominant performance and a similar line applies to Klay. His only great game actually came in Golden State’s Game Two loss at Oracle, which was not his fault at all (Klay was a huge reason that one was even close) but helps explain his unusual place on this team. In a way, Golden State’s second All-Star could be described as the best role player in the league because his excellence makes a win very likely but is not required for the team to succeed.

-LeBron James has been absolutely incredible in this series. The degree of difficulty facing a quality opponent with no teammates who can create for themselves and others cannot be overstated.

-Andre Iguodala played a nice game again but if a Warrior wins Finals MVP, it should be Stephen Curry. Steph is the driving force for the offense and while Iguodala has done a nice job trying to rein in LeBron, Curry has provided more total value so far.