The Golden State Warriors, finally, were able to make a game in the 2015 NBA Finals about offence.
This series has been a defensive grind, the Cleveland Cavaliers slowing things down and taking the fluidity out of Golden State’s attack. Game 4, a 103-82 Warriors victory, did not see a return of the give-and-go free-flowing Warriors – don’t let the scoreline fool you – but the beleaguered top seeded team did finally counter with an adjustment that allowed them to regain some control for this pivotal contest.
In their biggest moment of need throughout the 2015 post-season, Golden State went small.
Coach Steve Kerr removed his defensive linchpin down low, centre Andrew Bogut, from the starting line-up. Then he barely played him at all. His backup, Festus Ezeli, was nowhere to be seen. The Warriors, in desperate need of a semblance of offensive cohesion in this series, stacked the floor with shooters.
It seemed to help them find their rhythm again. They pushed the pace when it suited them, they moved the ball and made Cleveland chase them, they cut the fluff and met the Cavaliers’ seven-man rotation with their own seven-deep line-up. For the first time in this series, Golden State seemed to be able to stamp some authority onto the structure of a game.
And probably more important than anything, they simply made good on their open looks again.
After losing two straight during which Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala combined for just 50 points (8.33 points per player per game average) on 30.0 per cent shooting (18-for-60) the trio supplied 53 points on 51.4 per cent shooting (18-for-35) in Game 4. So that even on a night when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson continued to be relatively muted (31 points combined, 12-of-26 from the field), Golden State were finally able to make Cleveland pay for their strategy of daring someone besides Curry or Thompson to beat them.
On the other end, the Warriors committed to an aggressive double-teaming defensive scheme on LeBron James and, for once, kept him in check. After having had his way with 44, 39 and 40 points in the first three games of the NBA Finals, he scored just 20 on Thursday night, making only seven of his 22 shots. Golden State were finally able to choke off the one-on-one isolation post plays near the hoop James had been feasting on.
Playing small and focusing on LeBron, they basically let Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson take their points inside, as the two Cleveland big men combined for 40 points and the Cavaliers pulled down 16 offensive rebounds to the Warriors’ six.
It was up to Cleveland’s other players to step up, and like Golden State’s secondary contributors in the previous two games, their inability to do so largely made the difference.
Matthew Dellavedova, Iman Shumpert and JR Smith combined for 19 points on an abysmal 7-for-35 (20.0 per cent) shooting effort. According to SportVU data Grantland's Zach Lowe tweeted out, the Cavaliers made only 5-of-24 uncontested jump-shots in Game 4. The Warriors made 17-of-35.
It can, indeed, be that simple sometimes.
The Warriors are not out of the woods yet, though.
David Lee’s heavier presence in Game 4 seemed to continue to help the Warriors resuscitate a moribund offence. He scored a few buckets inside (and probably should have had more if not for some fairly simple missed layups) and drew some fouls when they needed easy points, generally seeming to help spread the floor.
But the difference between Game 3 and Game 4 was largely in Barnes and Green making, instead of missing, open shots.
The fundamentals haven’t broadly changed. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson are still effectively being denied by Cleveland – the MVP doesn’t yet have a 30-point game in this series. Golden State’s best player has clearly been Iguodala, who put in the bulk of the work on LeBron on Thursday night and made eight of his 15 shot attempts, including a crucial 4-of-9 from three in matching Curry with 22 points.
The Cavaliers are probably happy to live with that. The offence that got Golden State to this point with the best record in basketball – the flowing, stylish “pace-and-space” attack – is still largely missing in action.
And those 21 points the Warriors outscored the Cavs by on Thursday night won’t count for extra. Four games in, and the series is a very deservedly even 2-2.
Cleveland in some part will be able to count on the same things Golden State were counting on after Games 2 and 3. Just as unlikely as it was that Curry would be as bad as he was in Game 2 again and just as unlikely as it was that Barnes and Green would be the same disasters they were in Game 3 again, it’s not likely LeBron will struggle this much in any of the final three games of the series (although by the fourth quarter it did finally, for the first time, look like fatigue was starting to set in on the 30-year-old) and Smith, Shumpert and Dellavedova aren’t probably going to be that hopeless again.
But the Warriors can breathe a little easier now. A 2-2 series, with two of the remaining three games in California, certainly suits them better than it does Cleveland. And if whatever seemed to rattle Green and Barnes earlier is indeed settled, the quality of their supporting cast is a distinct edge.
After hitting a three in the first half, Draymond Green came down the floor and exclaimed, “I’m back!”
Golden State weren’t the devastating, elegant tiki-taka machine of the regular season on Thursday night. But in some important ways it looked like a first step back.
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