Tyronn Lue says Cavs plan to beat Warriors at their own game in the NBA Finals
Cleveland will try to push the pace against Golden State
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2 min read
This year's NBA Finals is a rematch, but the games will look completely different from last season's series. The big, obvious change is that the Cleveland Cavaliers are much better -- they have a healthy Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, and a new stretch big man in Channing Frye. This personnel also means that the Cavaliers will attack the Golden State Warriors with a new strategy. Instead of slowing the pace to a crawl and trying to dominate the glass, coach Tyronn Lue said Tuesday that they will try to beat the defending champions at their own game.
From cleveland.com's Chris Haynes:
"We just have to play our game," Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. "We're not going to slow the ball down and be at ease. We're going to push the pace, try to get easy baskets early in transition but make sure we're taking good shots."
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Puzzled by why I would ask in Tuesday's media availability if he thinks the Cavaliers can play run-and-shoot against the defending champs, Lue emphasized his point when he walked toward me afterward.
"We want to push the pace!" Lue yelled in jest for everyone to hear. "You know what I'm saying. Put that on record. Push the pace. You think I'm going to walk it down every time?"
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"We're not going to be scared of their small lineup," Lue said. "We're going to play our bigs and if the flow of the game calls for something different, then we'll do something different."
The Cavaliers are not exactly the seven-seconds-or-less Phoenix Suns. They were 28th in the league in pace before Lue took over this season and 24th afterward. In the playoffs, they've been even slower. They're extremely dangerous when LeBron James or Kyrie Irving has the ball in transition, but they don't force a ton of turnovers. If you are expecting Cleveland to be running and gunning the entire series, you will likely be disappointed.
Lue's comments, though, indicate that the Cavs will emphasize taking quick, good shots when possible. The way they've been shooting, this is a good plan. Against a team as versatile and long as the Warriors, though, they will likely have trouble getting the same sort of looks in the halfcourt as they did against the Detroit Pistons, Atlanta Hawks and Toronto Raptors.
The challenge here is being able to take advantage of transition opportunities without letting Golden State find its flow. Before the Western Conference finals, no team had successfully gone small against the Warriors and kept up with them. Cleveland does not have the same young and athletic roster as the Oklahoma City Thunder, and it is hard to see it playing the sort of disruptive defense that OKC did. Doing so is even more difficult when expending extra energy trying to push the ball off of every miss.
With Irving, Love and Frye playing major minutes, it would make no sense for Lue to try what David Blatt did this time last year. These Cavs do not seem equipped to grind out ugly wins. Fortunately, their offense has been incredible during the playoffs, and they have more weapons than any team Golden State has played in the last couple of years. They're going to have to hope that is enough.
