How Kyrie Irving found his groove against the Warriors in the 2017 NBA Finals

We’ve seen both the good and the bad from Kyrie Irving in the 2017 NBA Finals. After struggling in the opening two games of the series with an average of 21.5 points on 40.0 percent shooting from the field, he broke out in Game 3 with 38 points on 16-for-29 shooting and followed it up with 40 points on 15-for-27 shooting in Game 4. The Cavaliers split the games at Quicken Loans Arena, but their Game 3 loss was far more competitive than the two games they dropped in Golden State.

Plus, the Cavaliers proved once again that they can hang with the Warriors when Irving scores at a high level, and even beat them when he, LeBron James and Kevin Love receive some help from the likes of J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson.

Irving struggled in the first two games of the series for a variety of reasons, but there were two main factors at play. The first was Klay Thompson’s defense, which helped limit Irving to 0-for-5 shooting in isolation and 3-for-9 shooting in the pick-and-roll. The second was the help defense behind Thompson, which helped make every shot Irving took as difficult as possible.

Read More: How to build the most accurate 3-point shooting team ever

Some of those factors still haven’t changed — although Irving has had more success against Thompson since the start of the series, he was only a combined 6-for-15 against him in isolation in Game 3 and Game 4. The difference is Irving was 6-for-11 against everyone else in Game 3 and Game 4, including 2-for-3 against Shaun Livingston and 2-for-4 against Stephen Curry.

In an effort to get any Warriors defender not named Thompson onto him, Irving has been more active moving without the ball in his hands. He made those intentions clear on the opening offensive possession of Game 3 for the Cavaliers when they ran some floppy action for him and J.R. Smith. Curry and Thompson switched assignments underneath the rim to avoid a breakdown, paving the way for Irving to clear out the floor for an isolation against Curry and score in the paint over Zaza Pachulia.

Curry isn’t a bad defender, but Irving is clearly more confident operating against him. Because Curry doesn’t have the same height and length as Thompson, he can’t give Irving as big of a cushion in isolation. That means he has to play him slightly closer to take away the pull-up 3-pointers Irving made at a 35.1 percent clip during the regular season, which makes him vulnerable to being taken off the dribble.

The Cavaliers have also done a better job of spacing the floor for Irving in those situations. In Game 1 and Game 2, he had to deal with a defender in the corner and a defender in the paint when he attacked Thompson 1-on-1.

In Game 3 and Game 4, they either moved the offensive player out of the corner to give Irving a lot more room to drive…

…or they kept the help defense more engaged by putting Thompson and Love in better positions to score if Irving drew an additional defender.

In general, it’s helped them go from awkward possessions like this:

To smoother possessions like this:

Irving has been much better in the pick-and-roll as well. Whereas he was 5-for-12 out of the pick-and-roll in the opening two games of the series, he’s 12-for-16 since. He’s had a lot of success attacking Pachulia, JaVale McGee and David West in particular — he is 7-of-9 in the last two games against them — even with Thompson involved as the primary defender.

Simply clearing the floor to give Irving the room he needs to put Pachulia, McGee or West on an island has been successful so far in this series. None of them have the foot speed to close out on Irving beyond the 3-point line and recover in time to protect the basket when he puts the ball on the floor. As long as he can lose Thompson in the screen, it’s not hard for him to generate a good look for himself.

As a result, it puts a lot of pressure on Thompson to cover for the other defender by fighting through the screen to keep Irving in front of him. Once again, that can lead to good shot opportunities for Irving if the screener is patient and willing to re-screen.

The Cavaliers have further complicated matters for the Warriors on defense by involving more players at the point of attack in the pick-and-roll…

…setting a screen on the screener…

…running Irving off of multiple screens before driving…

…and hunting for mismatches when weaker defenders such as Ian Clark are on the court.

Many of those are still difficult shots by most players’ standards, but they’re ones Irving can make in volume. They’re also far more replicable than the ones he was getting in Game 1 and Game 2. Rather than driving into Draymond Green’s help defense under the rim, for example, the Cavaliers are making it more difficult for Green to leave his assignment while simplifying Irving’s options on his drives to the basket. It helps that there’s usually one or two players on the court who he can attack in a pick-and-roll like Pachulia, McGee, West, Clark or Curry.

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The question for the Cavaliers is whether or not those shots are replicable to the point that Irving can continue his hot streak for three more games. If he can, the Cavaliers will have an opportunity to make another run at history. If he can’t, we know exactly how the Warriors will take advantage.