SideshowBob wrote:Obviously can't get ahead of ourselves with the Raps and won't 100% count out GS yet (though TBH, it looks about over), but what do we think about the CLE-OKC matchup?
My quick thoughts would be that 2012 framework shows up again. Cleveland is worse defensively but has GOAT 3P spacing w/Smith/Shump/Frye/Love/Irving/Delly and you run the offense with Lebron in the mid/low-post all night long (his scoring is way more polished and his playmaking IQ from the post is far above 2012) and he'll pick them apart with ball reversal or interior passing if they're shading and no OKC guy is going to contain him in single coverage. PLUS Cleveland's iso game is just in general better than GS (outside of Steph really) with Kyrie/Love plus I expect Love to revert to the mean with his post game (which GS lacks even more). GS's movement is amazing and Steph has crazy gravity on the perimeter but I think Cleveland's offense is deeper/more dynamic.
They'll lose a couple for sure because Russ is going to abuse their lack of secondary lane/rim rotation and OKC will wreck them on the boards (Lebron should have another >10 TRB/G Finals if he's being serious about this) and inside in general , but I think they can out offense OKC over the course of 6-7 games.
Spot-on: Durant's D on Curry: ball denial, help on penetration, funneling him into the bigs - isn't something he can provide on LeBron, his positional matchup in the series. Whereas GS has been completely unable to punish OKC's guards switching on their bigs, that simply won't fly against LeBron/Love, and even if Durant plays LeBron straight up it's going to be a nightmare for him, probably on both ends too (as LeBron won't let Durant get position in the post, is also great at ball denial, etc.)
If you look at OKC's best lineups and how they're doing so well against GSW, the same dynamic simply won't be present against CLE: If they go small, Ibaka's simply not good enough to abuse Love in the post, they're about equal rebounders, ditto with Durant vs. LeBron... The 2 bigs lineup is somewhat better: Kanter can keep going at either Love/Frye/Thompson, but he's not really going to be able to create for others, so you can live with that.
The big thing, is of course, Westbrook vs. Kyrie. Kyrie will probably work Westbrook more than Steph right now due to his handles, and predilection for driving to the rim (something Westbrook won't look as good as defending compared to his glue job on Steph right now), but he'll get destroyed, far, far worse against Westbrook's own penetration, and there won't be a Bogut/Ezeli/Green at the rim waiting for him, so he's going to feast.
Sending late help might mitigate this somewhat, but he's become to good a passer for that to work long-term; lots of different looks have to be thrown at him to stop his dribble drive. Trapping him could MAYBE work? Adams has shown flashes of being a great playmaker, Ibaka's decision making is slow enough that he probably can't exploit the Cav's rotations...
I still think it's Cavs favored, esp. since they've showed signs of adjusting. But if Lue's Irving/Love hook isn't as quick, Cavs might just get destroyed defensively for stretches.
