NBA Finals Game 1: Four takeaways
By Ian Levy
Cleveland’s offensive stagnation
The Cavaliers have some incredible offensive talent. LeBron, Irving, and Love are all fantastic individual scorers, capable of destroying a mismatch and collapsing a defense. Over the past two seasons, Cleveland has often struggled at figuring out how to combine their individual talents into a collaborative system that elevates the team’s offense.
In the first three rounds of the playoffs, it seemed like Cleveland had found the solution. Three-point shots were falling, the ball was moving to all the right spots, the spacing was fantastic, and everyone was engaged. In last year’s Finals, the Cavaliers (mostly out of necessity) played a grind-it-out offensive style, heavy on isolations and post-ups. It worked to some degree and they seemed to be, at least somewhat, abandoning what had worked for them to this point in favor of what worked last season.
This was particularly noticeable with regards to post-ups. The Cavaliers went to LeBron in the post early and often against Harrison Barnes and Andre Iguodala.
All told, the Cavaliers finished nearly twice as many possessions out of post-ups in Game 1 as they did during the playoffs so far. They turned the ball over nearly twice as often, and scored about a third-fewer points per possession. After a few early hiccups, the Warriors did a great job defending LeBron.
These post-up numbers are mostly LeBron and Love, but Irving was just as guilty of stopping the ball on the perimeter and equally inefficient. If the Cavaliers are going to push things in this direction, relying on individuals instead of the system to create good shots, they have to scaffold it with more. Many of these post-ups and isolations became turnovers because there was no movement and poor spacing around them.
Slowing down the game works in the Cavaliers favor on a number of fronts but they have to actually score efficiently with their offensive possessions. That means ball movement and player movement in the half-court, not just standing around and watching each other work.
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