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From a basketball standpoint, the storylines going into Game 4 of the NBA Finals are as extreme as they are straightforward. The Cleveland Cavaliers have gummed up the Golden State Warriors‘ offense by daring the Warriors’ role players – from Draymond Green to Andrew Bogut to Harrison Barnes – to score the basketball. And, well… they haven’t scored the basketball. Those three players, who combined for 28 PPG on 48 percent shooting in the regular season, are at just 20 PPG in the Finals, and shooting a cool 32 percent.
Three games, to me, is enough of a sample size to say that these trends won’t just fix themselves; Warriors coach Steve Kerr is going to have to make a major adjustment, or adjustments, to the team’s offense going forward. We saw perhaps the first of these adjustments late in Game 3 when he brought in David Lee out of nowhere; are more tweaks on the way? Does Lee get starter’s minutes in Game 4? Does Kerr run more isolation plays for Stephen Curry to save him from the constant bumps and bruises that come from Matthew Dellavedova hounding him off the ball? Does Barnes get sent down to the post against a smaller defender, much like he did in the Warriors’ 2013 series against the San Antonio Spurs?
Whatever adjustments (or lack thereof) that Kerr elects to go with, he and his coaching staff hold the power to change things in this series. The pressure is on them to change the tone of the Finals, which to this point has decidedly favored the Cavaliers. With that in mind, Cavs coach David Blatt deserves a ton of credit for what he’s done to control games, and doing so with a very depleted roster. He’s won the head coaching battle fair and square so far; the ball is now in Kerr’s court.
I personally felt Kerr deserved Coach of the Year honors (although I made a case for Jason Kidd that I still stand by), and now is the best time to prove he did indeed deserve the award. The Warriors are in a tough spot, and might well have met their match with this plucky Cavs group. But I think we haven’t seen the last of Kerr. He’s a champion in this league, a proud winner and the has at his disposal of one of the more versatile rosters in NBA history.
It was at 2-1 down against the Memphis Grizzlies where Kerr put Bogut on Tony Allen for defense, a move which helped turn the tide in a series that quickly became a Warriors blowout. I think the Cavs, depleted as they are, are a much tougher match than the Grizzlies, so it’s going to take an even greater comeback effort. But if Kerr and the Warriors are going down, they’re going down swinging.
Casey Sherman is the Toronto Raptors Beat Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @shermham
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