No offense taken, I like a good back and forth debate. I think the Warriors will throw Durant and Igoudala at LeBron, Klay on Irving.
Definitely agreed on what the Warriors will do. I think, as a wing defender, Kawhi is noticeably better than Durant and Iggy. Durant has done a great job playing in the post this year, though. But nonetheless, I think Kawhi is the only guy in the NBA who can effectively and consistently mitigate LeBron's offense impact.
In terms of Klay, Danny Green is just as good of a perimeter defender. So we should see how Kyrie will score in that series based on our history against the Warriors in the Finals: i.e., Kyrie will go off.
TT. Since LeBron came back, we've matched up with LMA 5 times. He's only scored more than 18 points on us once (38 points when, IIRC, he was just killing everyone in his last year in Portland). I can live with that.
This is an interesting stat. My concern is that, if we throw TT at LMA, that means Love has to cover Dedmon... I don't think that's a killer, but it will hurt us in terms of defensive rebounding.
Well, I think this is probably an issue regardless of who we are playing, with how we have played defense this year. Aside from Kawhi, I feel like we should be able to switch pretty much everything on any weaves the perimeter players of the Spurs run. I will admit I haven't watched a ton of Spurs recently so I may not be understanding exactly what their weave looks like, but I think that's what we would try... correct me if this wouldn't be possible.
So the Spurs use the weave to attack switching defenses. Their goal is to get Kawhi or Aldridge on a smaller guy. Nonetheless, your point about the Warriors is well-taken, we'll have other defensive issues against Golden State.
Maybe they aren't anymore, but before Durant's injury, GS had the #1 defense. GS will switch almost anything that doesn't involve Curry against us (in a lineup of Curry-Klay-Iggy-Durant-Green), which has proven to make us go into isolation the past two Finals and it really limits the open three looks we get. Spurs may try something similar, but they don't really have the personnel. LeBron will either play bully ball with any perimeter guy other than Kawhi, or should be able to go by any of their bigs (maybe Dedmon can stay in front somewhat, but LMA and Pau are slow and will either be giving up a wide open three or a blow by) if they try to switch. If not, it allows us to run less iso and hopefully open up looks for our shooters.
The nice thing about switching defenses, though, is we are arguably the best team in the NBA at attacking them because of how difficult Kyrie and LeBron are to guard.
I doubt the Spurs try switching that much.
Maybe they do it when Tony Parker and Pau Gasol are not in the game... But other than that, over the past few weeks, I don't see them utilize switching defenses all that frequently.
Also, one last point, LMA is actually an oddly good switch defender. Per Synergy, when LMA is switched, he only allows .836 points per possession, which is in the top 20% of NBA bigs. He's also an elite Isolation defender, allowing only .793 points per possession (top 28% in the entire NBA). Also, when the ball handler goes away from the screen and Aldridge goes over the pick (33.9% of the time), he is
the best pick-and-roll defender in the NBA, allowing only .35 points per possession.
I totally agree on Pau. I doubt he plays many minutes in a series against us.
And Kyrie should be able to get by pretty much anyone as well.
Yep, he'd be our key in this series.
Will be interesting to see if Pop trusts him in the playoffs. IIRC he didn't last year, but maybe Pop trusts him more now. He'd be a good option to throw on Curry as well as far as WCF are concerned.
Pop is trusting him more this season than last year. I think he plays major minutes in a series against us, Golden State, Houston, and/or Oklahoma City... Probably not as much against Clippers or Jazz.
I do think rebounding could be an issue. LeBron will step it up which will help, but I've also seen Kawhi be a monster on the offensive glass in the playoffs. His rebounding is down this year, so maybe the increased scoring load (shot attempts - not being able to go after boards?) is part of that. But if he's shooting, LeBron will be less likely to be near the rim to rebound as well.
I think the rebounding issue depends on who we have guard Aldridge. If Love is guarding Aldridge, and you're just willing to let Aldridge beat you, rebounding shouldn't be a huge problem. If we want to neutralize Aldridge by using TT on him, and force Love to play as our primary rebounder, it could be a big problem.
The one good thing is that the Spurs are not as reliant on offensive rebounds as we are. In a lot of situations they'll only leave one guy (Dedmon usually, but David Lee and Pau too) to try and get the rebound, and everyone else will run back to prevent transition points.
This is an awesome conversation, by the way. I'm really enjoying it!
