The only other notable choice is going big and playing Mozgov like we tried to do in Game 4, but that clearly didn't work.
I could be vastly underestimating the Cavs here but as of right now, it seems like the Cavs on their best day are as dominating as the Warriors on an average day.
The Cavs offense at the end of last season was better on a per possession basis than GS.
http://stats.nba.com/league/team/#!/advanced/?Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular Season&DateFrom=01/21/2015&DateTo=04/20/2015&sort=OFF_RATING&dir=1
Further GSW is a team that has played together for several years to build their connection. The Cavs did this in 3 months on the fly.
You may not have thought of this -- but the Cavs basically went offenseless with the first team, almost entirely abandoning the offense for a rather vanilla (but obviously really effective) PnR set with LeBron and Kyrie. This is also why Love was consigned to a "Spacer". That was his role in a vanilla PnR set. Obviously they built wrinkles off of that, but this season they've got a whole offense with loads of plays with (primarily) Love in mind, since he has to have guys get him his shots in this offense (at least a lot more than in MN).
Also, it's not that Mozgov entirely didn't work. He scored like 27 points. If anyone else on the team could score besides LeBron he could've stayed in. But w/o the offense producing more they couldn't make it work. Even so, it seems that if more calls had gone the Cavs way inside it might've helped too. It's hard in a team sport like basketball to divorce one element from another. This isn't baseball. So going big with Mozgov might've worked if Shump or JR ever hit an outside shot. Cavs guards shot like 33 for the series (outside Ky). Might've been worse than that.
The whole small lineup thing also has one really difficult achilles tendon. You can get punished badly on the offensive boards. And trying to battle bigger guys on the offensive boards will wear you the frack down.
Unfortunately Tristan wore down under the work load. Nobody talks much about it but Thompson wore down badly in the 4th quarter. I suppose no one wanted to say something bad about someone trying so hard but Blatt wore him the frack down the way he played him, and I think was a little oblivious to TT's 4th Q decline, but it's there in the stats. Particularly take a look at Rebounding and defensive rating in the 4th.
http://stats.nba.com/player/#!/2026...15&SeasonType=Playoffs&PORound=4&Split=ingame
Cavs need some depth up front to beat the Warriors, but Andy, T-Mo, Love and TT are all very good offensive reboundser.
I think there's a tendency to fall in love with whatever won last year like it wasn't at all like relief pitching. Remember when it was all about the Spurs passing offense? And then before that it was the iso PnR action.
Small Ball will continue just like those things well, but just like the Red Sox won the championship and then were last in the division the next year, there is a lot of stuff that happens in a basketball season that could shift things one way or another. Hell Toronto looked great the first half of last season. So did Atlanta. They sure didn't look that great the last couple months.
People fall in love with success because it's proven. But greatness fades and success only encourages others to find ways to beat it. They may enjoy playing with a number on their back right now, but it may become more of a grind as the season moves along.
