Well yeah, Kyrie has been on one leg for most of the playoffs going against the opponent's starters.
How much he plays/when he plays should be determined by how healthy he is. If he's near 100% for The Finals, he'll certainly be back to his normal role of starting and playing big minutes...as he should.
If he's hobbling around like he was in Game 1, he shouldn't be playing at all. As you mentioned, our defense with Delly has been too good to warrant Kyrie with one leg playing over him.
There might not be a perfect solution since we'll be a heavy, heavy underdog either way to the GSW should we and they meet in the finals. It's going to be an uphill climb no matter which way we go. But Kyrie's defensive struggles have been apparent even before the playoffs, just not to this extent. 168 minutes is nothing to sneeze at; in those 168 minutes without Kyrie, this is an all-time type of defense; with him, we are a bottom ten of 2015 defense.
During the regular season, after the Jan. 15 trades, we did well with almost all lineups, and our starting lineup was a +20 per 100 possessions historic one, but our two best lineups, two of the best in the NBA, included Delly and not Kyrie. Take a look at these lineups, identical with Kyrie and Delly swapped:
Kyrie/Shump/James/Love/Moz 100 DRtg,
Delly/Shump/James/Love/Moz 78.4 DRtg
Kyrie/Shump/JR/James/Moz 113 DRtg
Delly/Shump/JR/James/Moz 87 DRtg
Now, Kyrie is still the starter in just about everyone's eyes, but a less than 100% Kyrie...will he be as effective as the players in our defensive lineups?
BEST CASE SCENARIO: Kyrie is completely healthy and can score super efficiently, make plays, and play decent defense. There was a one month period right after our trades in which Kyrie was a plus defender for the first time in his career. A plus defender with elite offense at the PG position leads to wins as really it's only Paul and Curry who can say they are both. Wall and Lowry are also very good defenders who are also impact offensive players but not elite on offense.
Even when healthy, Kyrie was often a defensive liability even though he improved so much this year on that end. One thing that's especially worrisome is his closeout defense on three-point shots.
During the regular season, opponents he defended at the three point line
shot 34.9% against all defenders. Against Kyrie, they shot 37.6%.
Lebron: 32.5% allowed, 1.8% lower than against all other defenders, 11.3% lower in the playoffs
Shump: 27.8% allowed, 6.8% lower, 9.6% lower in the playoffs.
JR: 32.6% allowed, 3.7% lower, 12.3% lower in the playoffs
Delly: 29.5% allowed, 3.4 % lower, 1.8% higher in the playoffs
Kyrie was our worst defender at the three-point line among our regular rotational players.
Our elite defense against the three point shot has propelled ur defense. If you don't close out on threes against the Warriors, you will get murdered, watch them dance all over the place on every play as if they won the Super Bowl, and stare at Curry chew on that goddamn mouthpiece
Now, will he be completely healthy in these playoffs? I don't know and at this point, it seems doubtful.
So, the question to me becomes this: which is more replicable--Kyrie shooting really efficiently and creating offense against an elite defense while playing decent enough defense against an elite offense while probably not 100%
-OR- Delly and others continuing to play defense at an elite level (especially at the three point line) against an elite offense while knocking down open shots as their offense and then bring Kyrie off the bench for offensive punch against a player that is NOT Curry? Both seem difficult enough to get to 4 wins against the GSW, but the latter does seem more replicable to me since a lot of it is based on effort and energy (things more replicable from game to game) and not on individual offfensive talent which seems more prone to greater variance from game to game.