Draymond Green sheds light on Warriors strategy against LeBron

Draymond Green and the Golden State Warriors resigned to LeBron James’ dominance.

As Golden State Warriors rookie Jordan Bell openly marveled at the athletic ability of 32-year-old Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James, he learned a lesson from teammate Draymond Green: the Warriors mindset about their mindset when guarding James.

(Quote transcribed by CSN Bay Area’s Monte Poole):

"“Draymond was on my team,” Bell said, “and he was just like, ‘Look, you can’t do nothing about that. Just worry about the next play.’ But he also said if LeBron is taking those types of shots, that’s what we want because we’re going to make more 3s than he makes 2s.”"

That may seem like an innocuous statement to some and, with James’ consistent dominance at the rim a hallmark of his success against the Warriors, the situation seems like a Catch 22. The Cavs want James to attack the rim, they want him to establish himself, they want to see him knocking down those midrange jumpers (the weakest part of his offensive game, as evidenced by both his midrange and free-throw percentages).

However, Green has a point. While Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant are excel at getting into the paint, they’re largely jump shooters. Last season, 66.3 percent of Curry’s shots came at least 16 feet away from the rim and 45.6 percent of Durant’s shots came at least 16 feet away from the rim.

In fact, the only players they have in their rotation that you won’t find chucking long-range jumpers are Bell (if he winds up in the rotation, which is certainly possible), Shaun Livingston, Zaza Pachulia and David West (though he’s an excellent midrange shooter). Even Javale McGee seems like he’ll be shooting threes in-game soon enough.

The best way for the Cavs to combat the Warriors barrage of threes has seemingly turned into fighting fire with fire. Isaiah Thomas, J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver, Kevin Love, Jae Crowder, Richard Jefferson, Iman Shumpert and Channing Frye are all capable of making their threes, if not players that can catch from the arc.

To that point, Thomas, Smith, Korver, Frye and even James are the types of players that can light it up from three.

Unfortunately, not every three-point threat will play against the Warriors. Shumpert and Frye are on the trading block and, in last year’s playoffs, saw their roles minimized. Frye especially, who only played 11 total minutes in the 2017 NBA Finals and a grand total of 44 minutes over the last two Finals.

With Derrick Rose and Tristan Thompson replacing them, the Cavs’ rotation would be at nine players. Of those nine players, they’d be the only two Cavs restricted to making two-point shots.

That’s not a bad way to fight fire with fire.

The problem isn’t offense for the Cavs though, especially when replacing Shumpert means having a guard who can consistently score. A guard you don’t wince at when he’s dribbling on the way to the rim for fear he’s going to fudge the drive.

The problem for the Cavs has been defense. In the 2016-2017 regular season, the Cavs’ team defense was a trainwreck after the benching of diamond-in-the-rough defensive stud DeAndre Liggins.

Irving couldn’t stop anybody from getting past him; Smith was in and out of the lineup; Shumpert was struggling to get around screens; Deron Williams, Korver and Frye looked old and slow on the perimeter; and James just wasn’t putting forth the effort you want to see from the best player in the world.

In the playoffs, the Cavs started blitzing pick-and-rolls and made clean, sharp rotations to compensate for individual players’ lack of defense on the perimeter. The scheme, which the Cavs practiced in secret all season, was a success.

There’s just one problem. The Warriors’ offense is too good at ball-movement, off-ball movement and shooting for blitzing the ball-handler to work more than a few times. That problem is magnified when the Warriors go small, which they do a lot.

Last year, Pachulia (their starting center) played 18.1 minutes per game in the regular season, 14.1 minutes per game in the playoffs and 13.2 minutes per game in the Finals. McGee played 9.6 minutes per game in the regular season, 9.3 minutes per game in the playoffs and 5.6 minutes per game in the Finals.

Preferably, when the Warrior go small the Cavs would just switch every screen but that would require athleticism they didn’t have.

Defensively, Thomas may be quicker than Irving but his height will certainly be an issue against every player sans Curry.

However, Smith, Crowder, James and Double-T have the size and athleticism needed for them to switch any screen without issue when the Warriors go small.

Smith, Crowder and James should be the main 3-man lineup and Lue should simply plug in the two players that fit their situational needs and play.

They’d then have the potential to create a multitude of lineups that can switch screens and run shooters off-the-line. Players with physical limitations from an athletic standpoint but otherwise have the length necessary to obstruct driving and passing lanes, like Rose, Korver and Love, should focus on team defense.

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*All stats referenced from www.basketball-reference.com