National Basketball Association

Cavs' defensive scheme is disrupting Steph Curry

Published Jun. 10, 2015 11:31 a.m. ET

foxsports

by Andrew Schnitkey

“Betting on the success of innovative technologies in the marketplace can carry all the uncertainty and risk that betting on the next card in the deck does at a blackjack table in Las Vegas. There is a factor of randomness that must be factored in, but precisely how to do so is anyone’s guess.” – Henry Petroski

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You know, if anyone could just look up some stats on a website and figure out what’s going to happen in a matchup in sports, then we wouldn’t call it gambling. The Las Vegas sports books were built on the principles of allowing people to put their money where their mouth is, with the firm understanding that most people, quite frankly, don’t know what they are talking about.

Numbers can be deceiving. They can also be extremely beneficial and useful in the right hands, and when used under the right circumstances. Numbers can tell us a lot about players and how they perform in certain situations. They can help teams figure out their strengths and weaknesses, and how to better build a gameplan around those strengths.

But looking at numbers over the course of a season is actually a pretty poor way to predict the outcome of a series. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about sports that I feel is a universal truth, it’s that sports are about the matchups. When people cite Golden State’s incredible season (and it has been incredible, no doubt about it) and look at their stats, they are using stats from an 82-game season and 15 postseason games. Prior to the Finals, only two of those combined 97 games were against the Cavaliers. All those stats against non-Cleveland teams really don’t tell us a whole lot about how they match up against Cleveland.

As Detroit Red Wings fan, I still vividly remember the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals. The Red Wings won the President’s Trophy that year with the NHL’s best regular season record. The Wings tore through the Western Conference playoffs, going 12-2 en route to the Finals. The New Jersey Devils, on the other hand, just barely made the playoffs. As the 5 seed in the East, the Devils never had home ice advantage in any round of the playoffs. Nobody gave the Devils a chance.

The Devils swept the Wings. How could this happen? It was simple, really. It was all about the matchups. The 1994-95 season was a lockout shortened one. The Wings never played the Devils in the regular season. The Wings weren’t prepared for the “neutral zone trap” system that the Devils used. The Devils’ defense forced the Wings to play a “dump and chase” style of offense that they weren’t used to or comfortable with, rather than letting them carry the puck and dictate the pace.

Most people would agree that the Red Wings were the better team that year. New Jersey was just a bad matchup for them. All of the impressive statistics the Red Wings piled up that season meant nothing when it came to matching up against the Devils’ defensive scheme.

Is this starting to sound familiar? For all the great things the Warriors have done this season, none of it really means much with regards to how they matchup with the way the Cavaliers are using their own defensive scheme to bother them.

While the Warriors would have us believe that this isn’t so much that the Cavaliers are bothering them and that they just need to execute better, that might not be so accurate. The truth is, the Cavaliers have the exact kind of players who do the things on defense that bother the Warriors the most. The Cavaliers have athletic and hard working perimeter defenders who aren’t afraid to play physical defense on and off the ball. They have a guy in Tristan Thompson who can slide out on the pick and roll and slow down the ball handler enough for the guard to recover. They have the size to disrupt Draymond Green inside. They have rim protectors who can affect shots in the lane.

Here are some interesting matchup stats for this series: According to NBA.com, against the Western Conference teams in the playoffs, 21.8 percent of Steph Curry’s shots were wide open and 32.8 percent were against tight coverage. Against the Cavs, only 9.5 percent of his shots are wide open and 52.4 percent of them are against tight coverage. 31.9 percent of his shots against the West were catch and shoot, with only 41 percent being pull up shots. Against the Cavs, only 20.6 percent are catch and shoot and 52 percent are pull ups.

Make no mistake about it, the Cavaliers are disrupting the way Steph Curry is playing. They aren’t letting him play like he’s used to, and the Warriors are struggling to adjust to it. Against Western Conference opponents, 41 percent of Curry’s shots came with him touching the ball for less than two seconds, and only 23.7 percent of his shots came with him holding the ball for more than six seconds. Against the Cavaliers, only 30.2 percent of his shots are coming with Curry touching for less than two seconds. And 30.2 percent of his shots are coming with him holding the ball for more than six seconds.

This is a radical shift in the way the Warriors are used to playing. The Cavaliers have taken Steph Curry completely out of his comfort zone. Instead of quick, open looks, he’s taking more contested shots and being forced to handle the ball longer to get them. This may be partially execution on Golden State’s part, but watch the way Matthew Dellavedova is relentlessly staying right on Curry’s hip. Few players have the discipline to play defense like this on every single play. But Dellavedova is doing just that, and the Cavs’ system is giving the Warriors huge problems.

I don’t know if the Cavaliers have the stamina and/or enough healthy bodies to sustain this style of play much longer. But if they do, the Warriors are in serious trouble, because there’s not much else they can really do to free up Curry. If the Cavaliers do wear down, though, as they did in the fourth quarter of Game 3, then Curry will find the slivers of space he needs and the Cavaliers will be in trouble.

Like everything else in sports, the rest of this series is going to come down to the matchups more than anything else.

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