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Because of their commitment to small-ball, the Golden State Warriors force their opponents into a tough defensive choice. Do you guard Draymond Green with a traditional power forward, asking a player that is accustomed to spending most of his time near the basket to chase a wheeling, dealing, shooting, driving madman out to the perimeter all night; or do you cross-match with your small forward on Green, stashing that extra big man instead on Harrison Barnes, who plays on the perimeter even more than Green but provides a more suitable hiding place given his role as a spot-up shooter?

It's a question with no true "correct" answer, but also one that often determines the flow of the game, or in the playoffs, a series. In this year's NBA Finals between the Warriors and Cavaliers, the answer to that question, and more like it, could determine the outcome of the Finals itself, because there is bound to be cross-matching all over the place, on both ends of the floor.

When the Warriors have the ball

While Green's shooting and play-making abilities from the four spot present a serious challenge for defenses, the main objective of any Golden State opponent is typically to make life difficult for Stephen Curry. The Warriors can free Curry in a number of different ways, whether with a screen set by Green or Andrew Bogut, a dribble hand-off, or decoy action elsewhere on the court; and they know that opening up even the tiniest sliver of space can be deadly.

Because of that, it seems incredibly likely that the Cavaliers will want to spend as much time as possible with their best perimeter defender, Iman Shumpert, shadowing Curry wherever he goes. That particular cross-match gives the Cavs their best chance of slowing Steph down - as LeBron James himself said on Friday, you can't actually stop Curry - but it also brings with it a trickle down effect.

First, there's the difficulty of matching up in transition. If Curry's not guarding Shumpert, then it becomes a challenge for Shumpert to make his way over to Curry upon every change of possession. Losing Curry in transition is tantamount to basketball death - he's scored 79 points in transition so far this postseason according to Synergy Sports, second to only James Harden. If Shumpert is not vigilant about finding Curry immediately upon the release of a teammate's shot, that can be the difference between forcing the Warriors into their half-court offense and yielding a wide open deep ball.

There's also the matter of finding a proper hiding place for Kyrie Irving on defense. Many teams with top-flight point guards provide less threatening options at the off-guard spot. The Warriors are not such a team.

Stick Irving on Klay Thompson, and Thompson can take it upon himself to control the offense. He's become a much more dynamic off-the-dribble threat this season than his first three in the NBA, getting to the basket and the free-throw line more often than ever before. He's proven adept at posting up smaller defenders, and of course is not at all afraid to simply let fly from the perimeter as if they didn't exist. Irving is exactly the type of smaller defender Thompson can treat this way.

Early this season, the Memphis Grizzlies cross matched Tony Allen onto Curry and guarded Thompson with their point guard, the 6-1 Mike Conley. While Curry was hounded in a 9-of-25 shooting performance, Thompson shot 8-of-16 and chipped in 22 points, but it wasn't enough as the Dubs lost the game by seven. The next two times the teams played, though, Thompson poured in 70 points on 37 shots, ensuring the Grizz wouldn't attempt that cross matching strategy again in the playoffs. While it's advantageous for Cleveland to keep Shumpert on Curry, they'd be inviting nearly as much danger by shifting Irving to the taller, stronger Thompson.

The other important potential cross match when the Warriors have the ball, as alluded to above, is in the frontcourt. Draymond Green is the archetype of the play-making four described by Zach Lowe in his recent Grantland article - one who can shoot from deep; put it on the floor and get into the teeth of the defense for a score or a pass; or post up a smaller defender as a vehicle for either a shot or ball movement.

The Cavaliers, then, have a decision to make. Their starting power forward, Tristan Thompson, is one of the most mobile bigs in the NBA, but he's still more capable and comfortable when defending the interior than the perimeter. Hedging to corral Curry on a pick and roll, then recovering to challenge a three for Green while still being under enough control to not get beat on a pump fake and blow-by, is tough sledding. Thompson may in fact be able to manage it, but it might be easier to neutralize the threat by guarding Green with LeBron James.

LeBron could do the corral - closeout - contain dance from Curry to Green just as Thompson potentially could, but he also provides the added option of a switch. If your life for some reason depended on choosing an NBA big man to switch a screen and defend the ball-handler for the remainder of the possession, Thompson might very well be among the first handful selected but James is arguably the best perimeter defender in the league when fully engaged; it's decidedly more advantageous for Cleveland to have LeBron guarding Curry with the clock winding down than Thompson.

The Cavs can also game this scenario more in their favor by sliding LeBron to the four and inserting J.R. Smith into the lineup in place of one of Thompson or Timofey Mozgov. Lineups featuring a point guard, James, Smith, Shumpert and either Thompson or Mozgov have scorched opponents by 20.3 points per 100 possessions across 107 playoff minutes, per NBA.com. The most-heavily used of those groups features Matthew Dellavedova at point guard and Thompson as a small-ball center, a unit that actually negates the need for a backcourt or frontcourt cross-match. However, that unit and others like it sacrifices some of what should be a big advantage for the Cavaliers in this series: their offensive rebounding.

When the Cavaliers have the ball

When each of the teams rolls with their respective starting lineups on the floor, the Warriors have an interesting defensive decision to make themselves. Draymond Green presents their best shot at slowing down LeBron James with his combination of strength and agility, but cross matching Green down to James means that Harrison Barnes has to slide over to Tristan Thompson, where Thompson's edge on the offensive glass should play up even more.

One of the NBA's best offensive boardsmen, Thompson has hauled in 13.3 percent of Cleveland's misses while on the court during the playoffs (the third-highest rate among the 90 players with at least 150 postseason minutes); it's a huge challenge to keep him off the boards. Barnes is a decent rebounder, but Green certainly has a better chance of mitigating Thompson's strength in that department. Golden State ranked just 18th in defensive rebounding percentage during the regular season, but they've rebounded opponent misses at what would have been a top-five regular season rate during their run to the Finals. Green's improvement on the glass (he's jumped from a 22.4 percent defensive rebounding rate to 23.8 percent) has played a big role in that, so moving him off Thompson could be costly.

That's largely why the Cavs going small could actually work in Golden State's favor more than their own, even if it limits the need for Cleveland to cross match on defense. If Thompson (or Mozgov, who's rebounded 12.3 percent of Cleveland's playoff misses, giving him the postseason's the fifth-highest offensive rebound rate) is the lone big on the court, the Warriors can stick with their normal lineup configuration and not have to worry about potentially getting worked on the glass if they use Green on LeBron. Andrew Bogut can simply take the big, while Green checks James and Barnes, Thompson and Curry slot onto Shumpert, Smith and Irving or Dellavedova.

Cleveland going small also presents an opportunity for the Warriors to break out their über-small lineup featuring Green at center. That configuration worked like gangbusters both ends during the regular season, and though it's seen limited postseason run (the three most heavily used variations of the lineup have totaled 80 minutes), it has continued that blistering success by blasting opponents by 25.2 points per 100 possessions.

Within that small lineup or others, Green is unlikely to be the only Warrior that guards LeBron. At different times, Golden State will probably use Barnes, Thompson, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston on James, depending on who else is on the court for both sides. Each of those matchups provides a different look for LeBron, a key point because letting him get comfortable within his matchup is just asking to get picked apart.

The Dubs are likely to similarly mix up the looks they throw at Kyrie Irving. One of the big changes Steve Kerr made this season as letting Stephen Curry check top-flight offensive point guards like Irving more often than Mark Jackson did the last few years, and that decision paid off handsomely as Curry's defense stepped up to the challenge. However, the Cavaliers do provide suitable perimeter alternatives where the Warriors can stash Curry to both limit the amount of energy he has to expend on defense and give Irving strong, more long-armed defenders to deal with.

With the starting lineups on the court, Golden State could always switch Thompson onto Irving and have Curry guard Shumpert, who is more of a spot-up threat that doesn't work on the ball nearly as much. In the event Irving and Dellavedova share the court, Curry could slide to that matchup. And if James Jones is on the floor, the Warriors can get really creative and stick Curry there. Kerr has shown he's not afraid to take advantage of unusual matchup choices and they chaos they could potentially create for the opposition - just look at how his decision to have Andrew Bogut guard (or not guard, as it were) Tony Allen during their second round series against the Memphis Grizzlies changed the complexion of that matchup.

In addition to Curry and Thompson, both Iguodala and Livingston figure to see time guarding Irving as well. Iguodala's defense on James Harden throughout the Western Conference Finals (and especially in Game 5) was huge, and Irving likes to attack in a similar fashion, using carefully time dribble-drive moves to get into the paint while leveraging the threat of a pull-up jumper. Livingston isn't as quick as Iguodala, or Irving for that matter, but his length and size present problems that aren't always easy to solve. Even if he gets beat off the dribble, he can use those pterodactyl-style arms to block or alter shots from behind.

While the Warriors are skilled and experienced in all the different cross-matches they're likely to use, the reason they may have an advantage when it comes to this area is because of their switch-heavy defense. Trading assignments so often during the regular season has given the players a comfort level in defending players at different positions that other teams just don't quite possess. It helps that they have so many long, strong, quick, like-sized defenders on the roster, of course (that's what enabled them to use the system in the first place), and that should also help them when scrambling to match up in transition. While Cleveland would be at a disadvantage letting Irving rather than Shumpert guard Curry, for example, the Dubs could feel just as comfortable with any of their guys taking the challenge of matching up with any counterpart on the other side of the floor.