In Zach Lowe's column about the Cavs, there were some quotes from Nate about how they defended the Cavs:
Love and Korver are second and third, respectively, on the team in postseason scoring. Cleveland piled up 125 points per 100 possessions against Toronto in 99 minutes with LeBron, Love and Korver on the floor, and outscored the Raptors by 41 points over that time, per NBA.com. Korver and Love are 50-of-117 combined from deep -- 43 percent -- in the playoffs.
"Those three together are just really, really good," says Nate McMillan, the Pacers coach who dealt with them for seven games in the first round. "There really isn't anything you can plan for. They just kind of play random basketball."
McMillan still tried. He rejiggered his entire defensive scheme to account for the Korver-Love ballet. He had his center, Myles Turner, defend JR Smith so that Indiana's quickest big man -- Thaddeus Young -- could chase Love. McMillan knew he was dropping Turner into unfamiliar waters.
"We decided we'd rather have Myles defend JR than have any kind of mismatch against the Love-Korver actions," McMillan says.
Dwane Casey, the Raptors coach, stuck with Jonas Valanciunas -- a traditional center -- on Love until Game 4 of Cleveland's sweep. He paid the price.
...
"You can't put a 5 on Love," McMillan says. "You just can't."
I think this puts into perspective both the desire for a "real stretch 4" as well as for versatile defenders. I guess we want to have a big man like Love who can score both from outside and inside, as well as more defenders like Thad to snuff out mismatches.
Maybe either Turner or Sabonis develops into that big who creates mismatches on offense (both are still incomplete IMO) but it's kind of telling that Nate feels he needs to hide Turner on a lesser threat.
Lots of things for Myles to work on this summer.
