Guest Post: How the Cavaliers turned the tide

Heading into Game 4 of the Finals, we bring you this guest post from Chistopher Pickard. Chris is originally from Phoenix, AZ, and is a diehard Phoenix Suns fan who is currently trapped in the confines of the Bay Area as a first year graduate student at Stanford University. As a former 4-year varsity swimmer, academic All-American and team captain for the Cardinal, Chris is passionate about finding the best ways to assemble teams intelligently and appreciates the finer things in life such as a good pick-and-roll defense. He is still waiting for David Stern to apologize for the 2007 Western Conference Semifinals. 

Entering the 2016 NBA Finals, the narrative for the series rematch between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers had a much different flavor than its previous rendition. Weakened by injuries in 2015, the Cavaliers returned to the Finals with a fully intact roster that included a healthy Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. In addition, the Cavaliers had acquired key veteran rotation players such as Channing Frye and Richard Jefferson providing more offensive flexibility that would minimize the reliance of isolation-basketball with LeBron James. The impact of these moves was dramatic and, over one season, the Cavaliers transformed an already very good offense into the most potent offensive attack during the 2016 NBA playoffs:

The Cavaliers entered the Finals some of their best offensive basketball of the season, which was visually evident in their complete dismantling of Detroit and Atlanta as well as during their four dominant wins against Toronto. Despite their improvements, the Cavaliers struggled to produce during Game 1 and 2 of the Finals as they shot just 36.8% from the field, 27.5% from three-point range and mustered an average of 83 points. The Cavaliers’ offensive juggernaut failed to materialize through some mix of the slow pace at which they ran their offense (resembling their 2015 Finals strategy), with little off-ball movement and the strong defense of the Warriors in terms of both team concept and personnel.

However, in Game 3 the Cavaliers emerged from their struggles to dominate the Warriors, shooting 52.7% from the field, 48.0% from three-point distance leading to 120 points, their third largest total during the playoffs. By asserting themselves back into the series with a 30-point beatdown, the Cavaliers’ sudden offensive outburst raises an important question: Was this  Game 3 success a result of desperation being down 0 – 2 or have they found a defensive weakness in the Warriors that they can exploit for the remainder of the series?

Using the same model to I used to investigate Kyle Lowry’s offensive effectiveness against the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals, the riddle posed by the Warriors’ defense can be answered using a shot-distance-specific regularized adjusted plus-minus model[1. The model measures the likelihood that a given event occurs during a possession while a player is on the court and the subsequent impact on the outcome of the points expected given it is shot attempt. The returned expected point values are adjusted for each player’s percentage time on the court during a game and returns an expected point value assuming a player has four average teammates playing against five average opponents. The model provides a comprehensive assessment of the efficiency a given player’s team has per possession in both offensive or defensive point expectancy while he is on the court given a known shot-distance.].

To examine the relative defensive impact by shot-distance, the model breaks down the expected points per 100 possessions above the league average for the primary Warriors’ personnel during the first three games of the series. This set of players represents the most likely personnel the Cavaliers’ offense will face at any point during a game. As expected, the Warriors’ defense is valued well above-average across many of the ranges, specifically between 4 – 16 feet from the basket. Additionally, the Warriors primary unit of Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Green and Bogut are exceptional at impacting three-point shot attempts, a primary strength of the Cavaliers entering the series, with Green and Thompson proving to be their most impactful defenders.

However, there are two noticeable weaknesses in the Warriors defense. First, a poor defensive impact when shots are taken within 3 feet of the basket and, second, specific player weaknesses, primarily in their second unit. Despite strong all-around defensive reputations, Barnes and Iguodala seem to be vulnerable to shots taken within 8 feet of the basket, which is especially noticeable when they are attacked off the dribble and not in a set defense, as shown in a few clips from Game 1:

These aren’t fundamental or existential flaws in the Dubs’ defense, but there are specific court areas players that are susceptible to below-average defensive which the Cavaliers can exploit. Looking to relative offensive impact efficiency of the primary personnel the Cavaliers used during the first three games can give some insight into how Cleveland can target these weaknesses:

As one of the best overall offensive teams this past season, the Cavaliers naturally excel in most measured ranges and specifically close to the basket with James, Love and Dellavedova providing the most impact. For James, it is important to note that his offensive impact excels where Barnes and Iguodala, his two primary defenders, are weakest. Note  Irving’s offensive strength is his mid-range game, specifically when shots are taken between 13 – 23 feet from the basket. However, the Warriors’ defense excels in those ranges and, despite his breakout performance in Game 3, explains Irving’s limited offensive impact during the first two games as he has shot just 33% from the field.

The Cavs’ struggles during the first two games were real, but heading into Game three they perhaps found a solution – a more actively aggressive offense. In those rare moments were Cleveland showed explosiveness off the dribble towards the basket during the games in Oakland, they found some success. This willingness to attack led to their two best offensive stretches during the first two games, specifically in Game 1 when the Cavaliers climbed back from a 7-point deficit with 3:51 left in the quarter to a smaller 4-point margin to end the quarter and during the majority of the third quarter when the Cavaliers turned an early quarter 11-point margin into a 1-point lead with 1:28 left in the quarter.

One of the best examples of this success comes off of high pick-and-roll action involving James as the ball handler. As shown above, late in the first quarter of Game 1, Thompson sets a high screen for James who uses it to crash to the basket. As one of the most dominant downhill players in the NBA, this puts stress on the Warriors defense that has spent much of the first two games guarding stationary figures and as a result, James is able to use his superior talent to score close to the basket.

The power of the high pick-and-roll action with James as the ball handler is twofold. If the Warriors are going to respect the three-point shooting threat of the Cavaliers, James will be able to have a clear path to attack the basket, an area the Warriors struggle to defend.[1. Especially if Andrew Bogut is out of the game.] If the Warriors sag on James, which they have done often in the series, James can use arguably his best skill to pass, which in the case above leads to an easy lob for a Thompson dunk. It is also imaginable that these passes can lead to open perimeter shots, a Cavaliers’ strength.

It’s important to note that in each of these cases, the Cavaliers found offensive success by attacking the basket even with Iguodala as the primary defender on James. The idea that Iguodala is a “LeBron Stopper” is possibly overblown. As exemplified by the clips above, attacking Iguodala off of motion, instead of playing stationary isolation-basketball or settling for jump-shots against a set Warriors’ defense is simply better offense for Cleveland as shown by both the model and basketball common sense.

The impact of the high pick-and-roll against the Warriors should not be surprising. The Thunder were extremely effective in Games 3 and 4 of the Western Conference Finals with Russell Westbrook as the primary initiator.

While Cleveland has used screens to induce switches, getting James away from Iggy, James had not consistently attacked those switches until Game 3. This allowed the Cavs to stress the Golden State defense in its weakest areas.