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Alright, I'm just watching the condensed game on League Pass for now, so I don't get to see the stops we get on GSW, but I've noticed some interesting things about the way the Warriors played us defensively.Just remembered that with League Pass, you can go back and watch archived games.
Bout to go watch that Feb 26 Cavs Warriors matchup. I thought we played them tremendously well that night, and I'm guessing we'll see a lot of the same.
1) Ball movement is key. The Cavs got the Warriors scrambling a lot by driving, kicking, and swinging it around the horn. We've got one less shooter without Love, but we've got plenty who have been on fire to still make it work.
2) Other than in the post, the Warriors almost never brought a double on Lebron. They stayed home with the shooters, and Lebron waltzed to the basket a lot.
3) The Warriors gave Lebron a lot of different looks defensively. When Draymond was guarding him, Lebron took him straight to the block with success. Surprisingly, he blitzed right by Iggy and Barnes a bunch of times.
4) The Warriors also played Lebron very tight, which is weird. In the first half he got pretty much everything he wanted on the wing against Iggy and Barnes. I wonder if they change this up now due to Bron's broken jumper.
5) Love worked out of the high post a lot and made some great passes.
6) Lebron's jumper was on fire. Hope it comes back for this series.
7) Cavs brought almost no doubles on Steph. Just left Kyrie on an island and stayed home on Klay, Barnes Draymond. Occasionally they would hedge on a Curry screen, but mostly Kyrie fought over the top of screens and iced Curry toward Mozzy or TT. Seemed fairly effective.
8) Every Cavs player took Draymond straight to the block. Lebron, Love, Tristan. Draymond had no answer. They abused him on the block.
9) Since Draymond won't have to keep one eye on Love, he's probably gonna get the green light to play free safety. But, the Cavs had some success running "The Play" (you know, the elbow pick n roll that ends in a Delly or Kyrie to TT/Moz lob). If I were the Cavs, I would run that constantly.
10) Still gonna need to see the full game since I didn't get to see the misses and successful defensive plays, but I remember Curry's jumper being off that night. Wanna see if it was because of pressure, or if he just missed good looks.
Hoping to go back and watch the full game in the coming days to break down the defense.
I know you can't tell a lot from a regular season game (Atlanta, case in point). Especially one where we had Love.
But there are some pretty good foundations that we can exploit here I think. Teh Draymond angle is gonna be interesting. He struggled with the Cavs bigs and Lebron, and he looked GASSED tonight. Long season might be catching up with him and his style of play. Especially since he's gonna be asked to do a lot in this series.