Zach Lowe's NBA Conference Final Preview

[BackForThe2ndTime]

Not sure if all the pics/GIFs will translate but if not, here is the link:

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-nba-conference-finals-preview/

 

Lowe actually watches all the NBA teams so his analysis is actually valuable IMO. Surprised he doesn't mention how important a reincarnated Korver could be more but still a good preview. WC preview is also included. He picks GSW in 5.

 

SCOTT CUNNINGHAM/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGE

Atlanta-Cleveland

The biggest question in a series between two wheezing teams with injury issues and thinned-out benches is simple: Which lineups do Cleveland’s co-coaches want to play?

Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson logged exactly zero minutes together in the one game Cleveland and Atlanta played after David Griffin, the Cavs GM, saved the team’s season by nabbing Mozgov, Iman Shumpert, and J.R. Smith in one mega-transaction.⁶ Those two bludgeoned Chicago with offensive rebounds, and they could do the same against a smallish Atlanta team that ranked just 22nd in defensive rebounding rate.⁷ Mozgov has never been better at protecting the rim, and Thompson has the speed to scamper around the perimeter with Paul Millsap.

But the Cavs have zippo spacing on the pick-and-roll with Thompson and Mozgov crowding the paint. There are no lanes for driving or passing. Against Chicago, LeBron reverted to a kind of state-of-nature basketball: lazy one-on-one jumpers and bulldozing post-ups that made Jimmy Butler look overmatched. DeMarre Carroll can hound LeBron one-on-one as well as almost anyone outside San Antonio, but no wing player can deal with him in the post. That kind of bully-ball is just brutally difficult work for LeBron relative to conducting spread pick-and-rolls — another cost of going super-big, and a reminder of what the Cavs lost when Kelly Olynyk hit Kevin Love with his finishing move. No single event of the last three months had a greater impact on the championship picture.

Atlanta defanged that pick-and-roll attack in their last meeting by blitzing James and Irving:

 

 

Playing that way is a gamble with Kevin Love spotting up. The rotations get longer, and Love’s shooting makes defenders think twice about helping away from him. There is no time for such reflection against a LeBron James offense. Pause and you die.

Everything is easier for Atlanta with Thompson in Love’s place amid a double-big lineup. The Hawks don’t have the size of a classic great defense, but they make up for it with speed, precision, and dogged effort. They’ll smother the ball with extra bodies, and when you swing it to the other side, they’ll meet you there on the catch. Shrink the distance they have to cover, and the Hawks can lock you in a vise grip.

Going big also makes it hard for the Cavs to hide a gimpy Kyrie Irving from Jeff Teague. Irving might be able to survive against Carroll after guarding another canny shooter-cutter type (Mike Dunleavy Jr.) for parts of the Chicago series, but that would leave LeBron on either Korver or Teague. LeBron can handle both — duh — but they are the kinds of taxing assignments he typically absorbs for only a few crunch-time possessions. But Irving’s defense is going to be a problem. He has issues navigating picks when he’s healthy, and Atlanta can slice you apart if Teague gashes the paint and draws help.

Teague has to amp up his score-first aggressiveness if the Cavs guard him with Irving or Matthew Dellavedova — just as he did in the last round when John Wall was out. Dellavedova battles, but Teague is just too quick and crafty for either of them, and the Hawks should let Teague attack one-on-one — without a screener to clutter things up:

Going smaller, with LeBron at power forward, could juice the offense and make it a bit easier for Cleveland to rejigger the matchups on defense — though hiding Irving would require LeBron to suck it up and take Millsap for big minutes. Lineups featuring Irving, Shumpert, Smith, James, and one of Mozgov and Thompson have killed it in the playoffs on both sides of the ball, per NBA.com.

Shumpert could guard Teague, Irving would slide to Carroll, and LeBron would battle one of the league’s most well-rounded big men. Some of those matchups are still dicey; Irving is a minus defender against anyone, and the notion of a spaced-out ball-watcher like J.R. Smith tracking Korver’s dragonfly flitting is enough to induce a panic attack.⁸

But a small lineup with Thompson at center opens the door to the kind of mass switching that can simplify defense for a rickety team. Mozgov and Thompson are good defenders, but scooting around the perimeter against Horford, Millsap, and Pero Antić stretches any traditional big man to his breaking point. Cleveland in March had Mozgov lunging out on pick-and-rolls involving Horford, and it went poorly:

 

 

The point of defending like that is to make sure Mozgov stays close to Horford — to prevent an open pick-and-pop jumper. But Horford and Millsap are uncanny at reading those hard traps, slipping into open space, and sucking in extra defenders. The Hawks can get a decent midrange jumper whenever they want. Those kinds of cuts (and Teague splits) are how they start the machine moving toward something better. The peak Hawks, whom we haven’t really seen since the last time these two teams played, get you in rotation and whip the ball around until they find the juiciest open shot.

It might be safer to drop down, wall off Teague’s drive, and scurry back toward Millsap and Horford before they can uncork jumpers. They can both pump-and-drive against that kind of defense, but if the Hawks beat you making a bunch of plays like this, you tip your cap:

Getting switchy provides a simpler answer. It could also create some ugly mismatches, but a speedy lineup is better equipped to send emergency help — fast. It’s also the easiest way to blanket Korver without a single lockdown defender, other than LeBron, suited to the job.

Going with Heat-style small ball would also force Atlanta into a dilemma on the other end: Do you match up position-by-position and let Millsap guard James, or keep Carroll on him — and hide Millsap on someone like Shumpert? Atlanta has preferred keeping Carroll on LeBron, but Shumpert has enough pep in his step to take bigger guys like Millsap off the bounce. Millsap isn’t the typical big guy, though; he’s fast, with genius tap-dancing footwork, and he could hang with Shump. But he can also slide around with LeBron, and Atlanta in the middle of the Brooklyn series decided to keep things basic and just have Millsap guard opposing small-ball 4s — first Joe Johnson, and then, against the Wizards, Paul Pierce.

Millsap has been comfortable switching onto LeBron in the past, and he has even swiped the ball from the King with his cat-burglar hands. Taking Carroll away from LeBron would free him to guard Irving — a move Atlanta made in the one head-to-head game LeBron sat out. Teague’s defense comes and goes, and if Irving has his zip back, the Hawks would do well to spot Teague some time away from the ball.

Putting Carroll on Irving also suffocates the dreaded LeBron-Irving pick-and-roll, since Carroll and Millsap could simply switch an action specifically designed to punish switches.

Look, the Cavs are going to do a bit of everything, and all of these decisions get much easier once these teams dip into their sad benches. James Jones does no harm as a small-ball power forward if he has Antić or Mike Muscala⁹ to guard, and Kent Bazemore will defend Irving when LeBron rests. The NYPD made sure Bazemore would be a key figure in this series as Carroll’s deputy chief on LeBron, but Bazemore just isn’t big enough to deal with James in the post. The Hawks have missed Thabo Sefolosha since the night of his injury, but they’ll feel his absence most here.

We’ll see Teague and Dennis Schröder play together; Dellavedova tailing Korver; and a ton of chess-playing with matchups. At the end of the day, you lean on your best lineups. We know what that is for Atlanta: one of the most polished starting fives in the league. We don’t know what it is for Cleveland, and the answer might change multiple times in this series.

It is hard to trust either of these teams. Atlanta has been off for two months, and its bench has been a disaster. Cleveland is even shallower, Irving is hurt, and every basket against Chicago was such goddamned hard work. The Cavs have limped across the finish line in a lot of their playoff wins against broken and overmatched opponents.

It feels like a toss-up, and Irving’s health is a huge unknown — and possibly the decisive factor in the series. But he says he’s a go in Game 1, and he finished strong against Chicago. I hovered fretfully between “Cavs in six” and “Hawks in seven,” but if Irving can rise to the occasion, then the league’s best overall player should have just enough weapons at his disposal to eke this out.

 

Prediction: Cavs in six

[capstone21]

Good read ... very informative

[HawkRock1123]

Yeah, Lowe's the best. Obviously I wish he would've picked us, but fandom aside, that's a great preview of this series.

[DieHardHAWK]

Good unbiased read...GO HAWKS

[QuantumZebra]

Good read. I am not a fan of the "Well honestly the Hawks just match up better against the Cavs and should win..........................bbbbut LeBron" argument; but I guess there is truth to it. 

[Gray Mule]

In the year 2015, the greatest player in the NBA is Bron, AKA "The King."

 

He big and strong.  He can drive to the hoop like a bull in a china shop.

Try to stop him and risk injury or death.  Get in his way and the officials

will give the Hawks a foul for their efforts.

 

Clog up the inside.  Bron will calmly drain three after three.

 

As Ali was "The greatest" in boxing, so is King James in today's NBA.

We are told that, in order to win, you are required to have a "go to" player.

For the Cavs, he is it.

 

See, there is a problem.  Unknown to many of these "experts" we hear on

a regular basis, basketball is a team sport.  Is his supporting cast up to

the challenge?

[bird_dirt]

Well, this SI writer actually picks the Hawks in 6, so there's that.  Not everyone is blinded by the Lebron Bling.

 

http://www.si.com/nba/2015/05/19/cavaliers-hawks-lebron-james-eastern-conference-finals-preview

[cam1218]

Very good read, thanks for posting it. I'm still going with Hawks in 7 but LeBron really is the wild card.

You put the second best player in the world (whoever that is) on the Cavs instead of him and I'm going with Hawks in 6. LeBron can just control games and he gets the benefit of the doubt in every single 50/50 foul call.

I think our starting 5 is that much better than whatever they throw out to finish or start games that we can win this series and keep making history. I'm glad our guys are getting rest but I'm freaking ready for game 1 to start!

Edited May 19, 2015 by cam1218