One thing that is overlooked when discussing the warriors 3-1 collapse in the FINALS

[hold this L]

Cavs would have annihilated OKC had they won the WCF... Cavs matchup better w/ OKC then GSW. What's Durant's record against Lebron again?

I don't really see that happening. Cavs biggest strength vs the Warriors was rebounding, the one area where OKC is actually better than Cavs at. That would have went to 6 games at least.

[RedBlackAttack]

Ty Lue gets zero credit for anything because LeBron James is on his team, but he deserves to be credited for out-coaching Kerr, imo, and really every coach he faced all playoffs.

1. The Cavs went from a middling defensive team in the middle of the season to better toward the end of the year and, in the playoffs, they were elite. That was about tightening the rotation, putting together the right gameplan, and getting guys to buy-in.

2. The Cavs completely changed the way they played offensively in the Finals as compared to the first three rounds. It's easy to forget that the Cavs were breaking records with their ridiculous shooting displays through the ECF. And, it looked for all the world like the NBA Finals were going to be about two of the greatest shooting teams of all-time.

However, Lue tried to run that kind of offense in the first two games, quickly realized that they weren't going to beat GS in a running, swing-the-ball kind of game. Instead, he went to an offense that was more about getting physical with the Warriors and going at them at both ends with standard isolation ball and basic P&R action. People bash teams for doing that, but there are a lot of advantages. It slows the game down, gives you more control, and allows your guys to get in position to crash the boards and get back on defense.

When you're whipping the ball around on drive-and-kicks and ball rotations, you may get more open looks, but you also have less control over who takes the open look and taking long jumpers allows teams to leak out in transition much easier.

It's just a riskier style of play.

Lue smartly discarded what had worked so well in the EC and devised a system of physically punishing the Warriors on both ends.


That's what sucks about the KD signing. It really felt like the Cavs had figured out how to beat the Warriors. Now, who knows. Back to square one.