Trade Rumor(s)

[JMoneyYourHoney]

You cannot put LeBron on Durant and risk getting him into foul trouble and, worse, physically taxing him. He'd be exhausted halfway through the series.

I think the strategy that Lue and his staff will devise will be to have LeBron again shut down Green's playmaking and keep throwing guys at Durant to defend him the best you can. If he goes for 30-40, so what, it's the rest of that offense finding rhythm that makes them unstoppable.

The key is to goad Durant into becoming a chucker and not getting Steph/Klay involved.

I still think Tucker would have been a more sensible get than Korver and I'm as big a pessimist as you'll find but series is not lost. There is A LOT to be said for Curry and Durant's lack of clutch and the LeBron factor.

We have to get Kevin mean and motivated, and a healthy JR sure would be nice.

 

[InBoobieWeTrust]

I disagree. If JR is healthy you go with PJ over Korver if you're going to give up a 1st rounder.

PJ isn't even worth a first rounder. If I'm proven wrong and somebody pays one for him this year, then I'll eat crow, but I think Tucker is just too much of an offensive non-factor without being anything more than just "solid" defensively. He is not an elite defender. He is not a lock-down defender. Far from an all-NBA defender. He is a solid wing defender with good size and mediocre-to-bad offense. That's the type of guy I would only give up a first for if I had an injury and I was desperate.

 

[The Red Viper]

Some greats points being made by both sides.

While I agree with @Rich 's point that Korver would be more vital for us than someone like Tucker would have been, I think having one more wing defender whom we could throw at KD would be something we should still be looking for. More than a Center and back-up PG imo. Get some cheap Center from D-League and some vet or someone for the back-up PG. But if we are trading some sort of assets, it should be for a wing defender.

Also, like Rich said, Ty seemed to prefer offensive players who aren't great defenders compared to defensive players who aren't great offensive players against Warriors in 2016 NBA Finals. Delly wasn't that great but he was having a much better playoffs compared to Mo who was kinda awol in between. But in the finals, Mo played more mins. I think the reasoning behind that was to wear and tear their perimeter players like Curry and Klay out, especially Curry, whom they can't hide on anyone. I think thats the planning behind preferring Korver to Tucker.

 

[Rich]

You cannot put LeBron on Durant and risk getting him into foul trouble and, worse, physically taxing him. He'd be exhausted halfway through the series.

I think the strategy that Lue and his staff will devise will be to have LeBron again shut down Green's playmaking and keep throwing guys at Durant to defend him the best you can. If he goes for 30-40, so what, it's the rest of that offense finding rhythm that makes them unstoppable.

The key is to goad Durant into becoming a chucker and not getting Steph/Klay involved.

I still think Tucker would have been a more sensible get than Korver and I'm as big a pessimist as you'll find but series is not lost. There is A LOT to be said for Curry and Durant's lack of clutch and the LeBron factor.

We have to get Kevin mean and motivated, and a healthy JR sure would be nice.

Who is he guarding? If LeBron isn't on Durant, like you suggest, and he's on Green, like you again suggest, how, exactly, does Kevin Love get on the court?

 

[gourimoko]

Who is he guarding? If LeBron isn't on Durant, like you suggest, and he's on Green, like you again suggest, how, exactly, does Kevin Love get on the court?

In this instance, Durant is swapped in for Harrison Barnes; and the rotation would be similar to last year with Love on Iguodala/Pachulia.

You could even stash Love on Klay, although that would be bad for us rebounding-wise.

Personally, I'm not a fan of this rotation. I'd much rather have LeBron on Durant.

Irving > Steph (Irving owns Steph for some reason...weird really.)
Smith/Korver/Shump < Klay
LeBron > Durant (no contest)
Love > Green (Love has improved, Green has massively regressed)
Tristan > Zaza/Iguodala/Varejao (no more Bogut)

I feel that if we can force the Warriors into isolation, slow the game down, play a lot of 1-on-1 ball. We'll have the upper-hand. If we let these fucks get out and run, we'll likely have a problem early on in the series.

 

[Snarly]

In this instance, Durant is swapped in for Harrison Barnes; and the rotation would be similar to last year with Love on Iguodala/Pachulia.

You could even stash Love on Klay, although that would be bad for us rebounding-wise.

Personally, I'm not a fan of this rotation. I'd much rather have LeBron on Durant.

Irving > Steph
Smith/Korver/Shump < Klay
LeBron > Durant
Love > Green
Tristan > Zaza/Iguodala/Varejao

The best part is TT is a master on switching. You can get away with Korver on AI, However Tristan and his job is easy compared to the rest. Love with Green is right up there but Love is a man now and not a scoring queen he had is not a man. So yeah I like those match ups at times. The thing that sucks for both teams is where do you go from there? As of now we pretty much have basic match ups. We made it work with Mo and D Jones last year and we got Korver... Heck win or lose just let it be fun and let us compete as hard as we had come Finals time. Oh you forgot about Javale Mcgee... how Dare you!

 

[gourimoko]

The best part is TT is a master on switching. You can get away with Korver on AI, However Tristan and his job is easy compared to the rest. Love with Green is right up there but Love is a man now and not a scoring queen he had is not a man. So yeah I like those match ups at times. The thing that sucks for both teams is where do you go from there? As of now we pretty much have basic match ups. We made it work with Mo and D Jones last year and we got Korver... Heck win or lose just let it be fun and let us compete as hard as we had come Finals time. Oh you forgot about Javale Mcgee... how Dare you!

It all depends on how we play basketball..

We've gotta play physical (dirty), hard-nosed (dirty), fucking street ball.

Remember that mofo down at the playground who never cut his fucking nails before yall hoop? That needs to be Shump.. Scratch the shit out of Klay some more...

 

[Snarly]

It all depends on how we play basketball..

We've gotta play physical (dirty), hard-nosed (dirty), fucking street ball.

Remember that mofo down at the playground who never cut his fucking nails before yall hoop? That needs to be Shump.. Scratch the shit out of Klay some more...

I agree and come finals time I guess we will see who is one and done because If I am a Cavs player I want GS and to cut their throat and get another one over them. Same goes for the Indians. I know and love Cleveland sports again... bad or worse I am excited.

 

[Jscc]

Love > Green (Love has improved, Green has massively regressed)

Fascinating. What did you mean by this @gourimoko?

 

[CavsFTW]

Love > Green (Love has improved, Green has massively regressed)

 

[CavsFTW]

Fascinating. What did you mean by this @gourimoko?

In gouri's defense, here's one possible explanation:

Love > Green via proxy. A competition between two players or teams where neither entity directly engages the other.

It was either that, alternative universes, or deep post-hypnotic suggestion.

 

[Sir'Dom Pointer]

Green is better than Love. He hasn't regressed a bit, actually he is tad better if you disregard his slight dip in FG%.

 

[Chaosknight]

I would try something along the lines of:

Kyrie - Steph
Klay - Korver/JR
Durant - Lebron/JR
Green - Love/TT/Lebron
Pachulia - TT/Love

With that line up and any of the permuations, the objective here is to minimize the play-making of Green and Steph, as they are the best decision makers on the team, with Iggy being the 3rd IMO. Anytime Green or Steph is catching or receiving the ball at the 3pt line you pressure the ballhandler for the pass (Green) or play for the drive (Steph) but close enough to contest if he pulls up for 3. Any picks between Steph and Green, needs to be communicated for the on-ball defender to push Steph to drive away from the pick, basically make him turn the corner instead of giving a direct line into the defense. If TT is on Green you can switch to mix it up, but you want to prevent Green from diving and creating havoc, if he slips to the 3pt line, mix it up with pressuring sometimes (shading for his drive) and giving him some space to encourage the 3. That strategy should be utilized on Green at the 3pt line/wings/elbows, this is to force Durant, Klay and Pachulia to be the playmakers, sufficient ball pressure should be applied to Durant and Klay when they don't have a live dribble to eat as much clock as possible.

 

[The Red Viper]

In this instance, Durant is swapped in for Harrison Barnes; and the rotation would be similar to last year with Love on Iguodala/Pachulia.

You could even stash Love on Klay, although that would be bad for us rebounding-wise.

Personally, I'm not a fan of this rotation. I'd much rather have LeBron on Durant.

Irving > Steph (Irving owns Steph for some reason...weird really.)
Smith/Korver/Shump < Klay
LeBron > Durant (no contest)
Love > Green (Love has improved, Green has massively regressed)
Tristan > Zaza/Iguodala/Varejao (no more Bogut)

I feel that if we can force the Warriors into isolation, slow the game down, play a lot of 1-on-1 ball. We'll have the upper-hand. If we let these fucks get out and run, we'll likely have a problem early on in the series.

In order to defeat the Warriors, we need these three things to happen:-

1. We need LeBron to outplay Durant and be the best player in the series. There's a good possibility of that happening.

2. We would need Kyrie to once again outplay Steph, which he can.

3. Last and probably, what would be the decider is, we need one more of our player to outplay one of Draymond or Klay. Whether be it Love/TT outplaying or negating Draymond or JR/Korver/Shump/RJ outplaying Klay and Livingston.

I am quite confident about 1 and 2. But the 3 one is where I am not absolutely confident about. We would need a career best series from one of Kev, TT, JR, Korver and Shump. If we get that, we will repeat imo!

 

[The Oi]

Cavs need to muck the Warriors up, play physical basketball against them and give Durant enough space to take shots that he takes them instead of passing to Curry and Klay.

And when I say physical, I agree with @gourimoko...their lesser players need to be right on the edge of trying to injure guys.