NBA Finals: 5 takeaways from Game 3
By Ian Levy
3. Tristan Thompson: Beast mode
Tristan Thompson’s primary contribution is his voracious work on the offensive glass. Thompson had nine offensive rebounds through the first two games of the series, and seven in Game 3 alone. As Irving and LeBron were increasingly successful at getting into the middle of the defense, Thompson had a field day sliding in behind Golden State’s rotating defenders to put himself in position.
According to the NBA’s player tracking statistics, Thompson had 16 offensive rebounds chances in Game 3 — defined as the number of times a player was within 3.5 feet of an offensive rebound. The Warriors, as a team, had just 14 offensive rebound chances. Thanks in large part to Thompson’s relentless work on the offensive glass, the Cavaliers had 23 second-chance points.
Thompson has rebounded 21.8 percent of Cleveland’s misses when he’s been on the floor in this series, a mark that would have lead the league every season for the last decade. His work on the glass is one of the few levels Cleveland has to force rotational adjustments from Golden State. The Cavaliers expanded their luxury tax bill by signing Thompson to a five-year, $82 million contract last summer. Game 3 is exactly what they were hoping to get for their money.
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