Guest boatboatboat Posted May 18, 2015 Report Share Posted May 18, 2015 [h=2]QUESTION 1: The Warriors swept the season series against the Rockets, but Dwight Howard played only two of those games and arguably wasn't 100 percent healthy. How does a fully healthy Howard change this series?[/h] {C}{C} Dwight Howard's role as an above-the-rim, athletic type can give Golden State problems offensively. Scott Halleran/Getty Images Elhassan: Ideally for Houston, Howard can provide a stronger presence in the paint than what we saw in their regular-season matchups against Golden State. The common perception of the Warriors is that they are an offensive-driven outfit, fueled by a barrage of 3-point makes. The reality is they're a team that lives and dies off their defense and love to get easy baskets in transition against discombobulated defenses. Howard's role as an above-the-rim athletic type (something the Warriors really don't have a matchup for) can give Golden State problems offensively, which in turn gives the Rockets' defense a chance to reset in the half court. That's the optimal version of how this goes; realistically, Golden State's ability to go small without suffering the usual consequences of such (their defense actually gets better) allows them to turn the tables and force Houston to adjust to be able to guard them. The Warriors can go five out on the perimeter and make Howard have to leave his comfort zone in the paint and venture out to guard Draymond Green on the perimeter, where he can attack off the dribble and collapse help defense. Doolittle: The big thing is that having Howard to protect the lane allows Houston to extend its perimeter defenders a little, though they can't get blown by on a regular basis. The Warriors, i.e. Curry, will drive-and-kick Houston to death if the Rockets defense scrambles, so defenders will have to be disciplined when helping. That's the theory anyway. During the season, Golden State scored 130.5 points per 48 minutes with Howard on the floor, so Houston has to hope for the healthier version of Howard and turns theory into positive practice. Ideally, his presence helps the Rockets execute their preference of forcing a preponderance of midrange jumpers. On offense, Howard gives Andrew Bogut something to do other than play roving-help defender like he got to do so often against Memphis when Tony Allen was on the floor. The Warriors aren't a great rebounding team, so that is an area Howard can exploit on both ends of the floor. If he can do so, he keeps Golden State out of transition on one end and gets Houston into its own running game on the other end. And yet -- Howard can't go out and guard Curry and Thompson on the perimeter, so the battle may be lost before the game ever gets to him. [h=2]QUESTION 2: Golden State swept Houston this season with the Rockets best on-ball defender, Pat Beverley, in the lineup. How can Houston defend Steph Curry without his availability?[/h] Stephen Curry is unguardable, so this series will be about limiting the other Warriors scorers. AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez Elhassan: The Grizz did a nice job in Games 2 and 3 of defending Stephen Curry by basically making him see two defenders every time he touched the ball. Every pick-and-roll Curry tried to run ended up with him having a defender on his hip and a big playing up and attempting to corral, forcing him to have to make a pass (that Memphis also did a good job prepping for by playing with hands high in the passing lanes). Of course, Curry exploded in the last three games, but the general premise of the defensive strategy is as sound as you can expect against the MVP. For Houston, not having Beverley available is an obvious disadvantage (Memphis had the luxury of Mike Conley to stay attached to Curry), but they do have bigger defenders like Corey Brewer and Trevor Ariza to try to use their size and length advantages to create for tougher pass outs for Curry. Additionally, Prigioni might be helpless in one-on-one scenarios, but as a piece in a larger defensive scheme, he's capable of sending Curry towards the help. The bigger question is can the Rockets bigs outside of Howard have the defensive discipline to work in concert with their teammates, to ensure Curry doesn't get off? Although Houston was much improved on defense this year, they aren't quite as fine tuned as the Grizzlies were on that end of the floor. Doolittle: Don't know. But then again, can anyone? Beverley or no, Curry is un-guardable, and this series is really a challenge to limit the other Warriors. Although, it would be nice to have Beverley. Still, when we were scouting up Houston's last series against the Clippers, my primary concern for the Rockets was Beverley's absence. Jason Terry and Pablo Prigioni are heady, steady veterans, and Prigioni's moxie helped set the tone in Houston's Game 7 win. But neither player contained Chris Paul one-on-one. Yet it didn't seem like a huge factor. Paul missed two games, which certainly helped. But when he did play, he averaged 21.2 points and 10 assists. Good numbers, but not crazy, off-the-charts numbers. To me, the worst you can say about whatever solutions Kevin McHale comes up with for the Curry conundrum, he's going to get what he's going to get, but not exponentially more. But I don't think you can point at the absence of Beverley and believe that it matters all that much. For the record, Curry played 82 minutes against Houston with Beverley on the court, and 63 without, per NBA.com/stats. With no Beverley, Curry averaged 31.7 points per 40 minutes and shot 60 percent overall, and 61.5 percent (!) on 3s. With Beverley on the court, Curry was still at 25.9 points and shot 56 percent. Defender-neutral superstar. [h=2]QUESTION 3: Harden had his struggles against the Clippers, and Thompson went through several droughts against the Grizzlies. Which All-Star SG has a better chance of getting back on track?[/h] Klay Thompson will not face the same caliber of defense he saw last series against Memphis. Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images Elhassan: Thompson, without a doubt. Unlike Harden, Thompson is getting ready to face an easier defense; Harden's life just got a lot more miserable. He has to face the No. 1 defense in the league, which has the flexibility to either guard him individually with long, active defenders who can constantly switch, like Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Thompson or Green; or guard him like the Clippers did, with weak-side help showing on the strong side and forcing Harden to pass over the top against a defense that can cover a lot of ground quickly and turn turnovers into buckets in the blink of an eye. Moreover, Harden has the burden of being the focal point of his teams' offense, which of course also makes him the focal point of his opponents' defense. Thompson has the luxury of being an afterthought in many regards; with so much energy expended in keeping Curry in check, Thompson faces lesser defenders and can operate off down screens without the prospect of seeing the type of help defense he saw against the Grizzlies. Doolittle: Thompson. He wasn't great against Houston during the season, averaging 21.5 points in four games but with a true shooting percentage of just 53.1, a number propped up by a team-high 6.3 foul shots per game. He hit just 25.9 percent on 3s against Houston. However -- who is the impact defender that will hound Thompson in this series? Brewer? Ariza? OK, they're pretty good, but doing it that way also means cross-matching and freeing up Harrison Barnes, who shot 53.8 percent on 3s and 61.6 percent overall against the Rockets. But I'm burying the lede here. Harden is a much better offensive player than Thompson, and the majority of the time I'd answer this question with something like, "Harden. Obviously." But the problem is that Golden State has Thompson to defend. Per 40 minutes, Harden averaged 23.3 points on 36.2 percent shooting during the 110 minutes he was on the floor at the same time as Thompson. In 35 minutes without his annoying presence around, Harden shot 50 percent and averaged a whopping 42.3 points per 40 minutes. A point a minute! Plus when Steve Kerr wants to get creative, there is also the menacing presence of Green. The Warriors just have better individual defenders. [h=2]Predictions[/h] Elhassan: Warriors in 5. Golden State is not like any team Houston has faced, as their depth and collective defensive excellence separates them from every team in the NBA. With their ability to show different looks (on both ends of the floor) and the overall brilliance of Curry, the Warriors have the upper hand in almost every category. Doolittle: Warriors in 5. I just don't see the Rockets getting enough stops consistently, especially when Golden State has the wherewithal to force Harden into a sub-efficiency showing. The Rockets had the worst defensive rating of the second round. Yes, Houston was playing the Clippers, and if you adjust for that, their showing wasn't that bad. And it was also skewed by three particularly poor performances. But Golden State is a much more complete, balanced and varied opponent. [h=2]Don't be surprised if...[/h] Elhassan: Harrison Barnes continues his under-the-radar excellent play. While Curry, Thompson and Green continue to garner much of the media attention, Barnes has turned in a silently effective, consistent playoff showing, whether by scoring versus the inevitable mismatches he faces or excellent defense and rebounding as a small-ball four. Doolittle: Houston doesn't take any midrange shots. OK, that's impossible. But consider that the Rockets already take midrange jumpers at a lower rate (10.7 percent) than any other team, and only the Sixers had a worse accuracy from that range during the regular season. Golden State, on the other hand, allowed the lowest shooting percentage on midrange shots (37.8 percent) in the league. Why would Houston ever shoot from there? They won't, not very often anyway. [h=2]BPI projection[/h] 82 percent chance Warriors win series. Most likely series outcome is Golden State in five. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boatboatboat Posted May 18, 2015 Report Share Posted May 18, 2015 [h=2]QUESTION 1: Atlanta struggled for consistency against a stout Washington defense. Cleveland started slow on defense this season, but since mid-January or so, the Cavs have been stingy. Are there any advantages the Hawks' high-efficiency attack has against Cleveland that it did not have against the Wizards?[/h] Amin Elhassan: The most obvious answer is at the point guard position, where a gimpy Kyrie Irving and Matthew Dellavedova are a massive step down defensively over what the Wizards rolled out defensively to slow down Teague. Much of Atlanta's offense is initiated by dribble penetration, followed by ball and body movement to take advantage of shifting help defense. Meanwhile, although the Cavs' on-ball defense improved tremendously since the midseason acquisitions of Mozgov, Shumpert and Smith, they still don't deal well defending sets that involve secondary or tertiary rotations. Having to help on Teague's dribble drives forces Cleveland into rotations that will make it hard for it to also keep track of shooters like Korver and Carroll and cutters like Millsap and Horford. The other option would be for the Cavs to cross-match, by using Shumpert on Teague and hiding the point guards on Atlanta wings, but that doesn't make life any easier on them, since Korver doubles as a marathon runner in games and Carroll is a physical presence. On the other hand, I just answered this question as if Atlanta's offensive struggles this postseason have been opponent-driven rather than self-inflicted. There hasn't been the same level of trust in the system exhibited by the Hawks in the postseason as we saw during the regular season, as the ball has seemingly stuck a little longer in players' hands. We'd also be amiss if we didn't point out that Korver's shooting has been shockingly subpar, especially in wide-open situations that he normally is lethal in. Bradford Doolittle: The Cavaliers weren't a great shot-blocking team and struggled with rim protection for much of the season. However, their 2-point-percentage defense jumped from 29th in the first half to 12th thereafter, and it's only been getting better since. The improvement largely coincided with the addition of Timofey Mozgov. According to SportVu data from NBA.com/stats, only Portland has allowed a lower percentage at the rim than Cleveland's 46.4 percent in the postseason. And the Cavs have blocked more shots per game than any other playoff squad. The problem is that Atlanta doesn't rely on points in the paint, only getting into the paint in the first place. Atlanta's offense is egalitarian ball-sharing and dependent on sharp-shooting. But it all starts with penetration off the pick-and-roll, which according to Synergy, accounts for 37.7 percent of Atlanta's play types, second only to Toronto. The Hawks like to get jet-quick point guards Jeff Teague and Dennis Schroder on the attack, which is why they ranked third in total drives per game during the regular season. And from there, the Hawks love to kick it out and reverse the ball for the open 3. During the playoffs, the Hawks lead all teams in assists per game and fourth in "hockey" assists. They ranked second and third in those categories during the regular season. Despite all those drives, only six teams got a lower percentage of their points in the paint this season. We're not suggesting that Cleveland try to keep the ball confined to the paint of course. The point is that what happens after Atlanta pierces the middle of the Cavalier defense is at least half the battle. Cleveland has allowed only 30.5 percent shooting on 3s in the playoffs, the best of all postseason entrants. The ability to protect the high-efficiency zones on the court has allowed Cleveland to survive during the first two rounds even when its offense isn't clicking. Cleveland did a good job of limiting Atlanta's 3s during the four regular-season meetings, but allowed a whopping 59.7 percent on 2-pointers -- its worst performance against any team. The Cavs need to continue to marry their interior defense to their recover and/or stay-at-home defense against an Atlanta attack that will put a lot more pressure on them than it did the Celtics or Bulls. [h=2]QUESTION 2: Cleveland is missing Kevin Love and an uncertain percentage of Kyrie Irving's usual capacity. For Atlanta to win, what will LeBron James' numbers need to look like, and what do they do to keep him there?[/h] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boatboatboat Posted May 18, 2015 Report Share Posted May 18, 2015 Elhassan: I'm not a fan of presetting stat lines -- "LeBron has to be held under 18 points and 11 assists for the Hawks to win" just doesn't carry much meaning. Rather, I'll say the Hawks need to limit James' paint touches (the number of times he has the ball with at least one foot in the paint). It's been proven that James can be lulled into taking perimeter shots for stretches of games. His shooting from the perimeter (and 3-point line in particular) has been terrible during the postseason, so keeping him out there would be an especially effective approach. Doolittle: Only two Eastern Conference teams outscored Cleveland with James on the floor during the regular season -- Chicago and Atlanta. James played in three of the four games between the teams, two of which Atlanta won. It's not like Atlanta shut him down: James averaged 29 points, 6.1 boards and 6.9 assists per 40 minutes against the Hawks and had a 61.9 true shooting percentage. However, the Hawks generally blitzed Cleveland on the other end (112.9 points per 100 possessions) with James on the court. You can't blame James for that, but it does suggest that he's going to have to expend energy on that end of the floor, and it could impact an offensive efficiency that already has lagged in the playoffs. We should also mention that James committed 5.7 turnovers per 40 minutes against Atlanta, and that area has been a sore spot for him in the playoffs. DeMarre Carroll is likely to be the primary defender on James this series, and according to ESPN Stats and Info, James shot just 3 of 15 and committed five turnovers with Carroll as his main defender during the two games they played against each other. And we know that the Carroll we've seen in the playoffs will make James work on the defensive end. Cleveland has been holding Irving out of practice in an effort to get him ready, and they are going to need him to make an impact. Atlanta aggressively blitzed Cleveland's pick-and-roll during the season, putting the onus on the ball handler. However, even when James was able to isolate, the Hawks held him to just 31.2 percent shooting. So it would seem that a max-impact James in this matchup would amp up the assists column while minimizing turnovers. Key target numbers: 11 or more assists per game, and three or fewer turnovers. If those things happen, the other numbers will take care of them selves. [h=2]QUESTION 3: Atlanta is the top seed and won seven more games than Cleveland. Over the second half, the Cavs were not just better on both ends of the floor, but had an efficiency margin over six points higher than the Hawks. But Cleveland is at quite a bit less than full strength. All things considered, who is the real favorite here?[/h] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest boatboatboat Posted May 18, 2015 Report Share Posted May 18, 2015 Elhassan: Almost any time you step on the floor with the best player on the planet, you're considered the favorite whether you like it or not. Cleveland's injury issues are a concern, but James is exactly the kind of talent who can make up for a LOT of shortcomings. Atlanta, on the other hand, is still struggling with the absence of Thabo Sefolosha (a defender they could have used in this series), and haven't scored as smoothly as we grew accustomed to seeing during the regular season. The Hawks had the better regular season and are healthier, but the Cavs are still the favorite because of the ability of one player to enormously impact the series. Doolittle: Both teams feel more like survivors than conquerors. If this series were being played three months ago, the Hawks would certainly feel like the favorite. Yet we would all be surprised if LeBron and Co. walk off the floor as losers at the end of this series. Cleveland has the best player and its defense is clicking on all cylinders, both because of and in spite of Love's injury. So, sure, the Cavs are the favorites. At the same time, the Hawks have stepped up when they've needed to. An 8-4 playoff record is nothing to sneeze at, no matter who you play. I feel like these teams in their current forms are more evenly matched than people realize, and Atlanta presents plenty of matchup issues for Cleveland. The Hawks also have home-court advantage. [h=2]Predictions[/h] Elhassan: Cavs in 5. Atlanta hasn't just been different since the playoffs started, but really going all the way back to March. For all of their flaws (and they have many), the Cavs have been able to do enough to pull out victory after victory. With the Larry O'Brien Trophy within grasp, I expect to see James kick into a higher gear here. Doolittle: Hawks in 7. Chicago wasn't able to fully exploit Love's absence, but I think Atlanta has just the right weapons to do so. Irving is going to have a hard time keeping Teague out of the lane, while Al Horford and Paul Millsap can draw Mozgov and Tristan Thompson away from the hoop. If Dave Blatt goes small, Atlanta's bigs can move down to the block on offense and are mobile enough to not get burned at the other end. I feel like over a long series, the Hawks will have the Cavaliers scrambling. [h=2]Don't be surprised if ...[/h] Elhassan: Tristan Thompson has a great series. His boundless energy and offensive rebounding gives opponents problems, and he's the type of above-the-rim, athletic finisher that the Hawks don't have a match for. Doolittle: We see the return of Kyle Korver. Bradley Beal and Otto Porter limited Korver's looks over the last four games of the Washington series, but if Teague and Schroder break down the Cleveland defense as I anticipate, the Cavs won't have the luxury to have a guy stuck to Korver all the time. [h=2]BPI Projection[/h] 62 percent chance Cavaliers win series. Most likely series outcome is Cleveland in five Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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