It’s finally here. The series everyone has waited on since the All-Star break has finally arrived. The 2015 NBA Finals featuring two local Akron, Ohio kids will begin in Oakland, California on June 4th. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors will be facing off and the Akron kids, LeBron James and Stephen Curry, are stealing the early headlines and for obvious reasons.
LeBron James, the 4-Time NBA MVP, the man who has eclipsed Kobe Bryant as the face of the NBA. A man who left his hometown for South Beach riches and gold, which caused an uproar of burnt ‘James’ Cavs jerseys in Cleveland. He finally returned home and leads his home team to the NBA finals for the second time in franchise history. James has been through quite possibly his most tumultuous and tedious season of his career. He went through his issues with both his head coach David Blatt and fellow star Kevin Love while managing to pull his team out of mediocrity to complete dominance over the Eastern Conference.
Stephen Curry, the babyfaced next heir apparent to the crown of being the ‘face of the NBA’. The young man who overcame some early potentially career threatening injuries, proved his worth this season winning the NBA’s MVP award. He’s made a majority of the country fall in love with him partly due to his exciting play, squeaky clean persona and not to mention his near picture perfect family. Curry leads a franchise that has been looked at for the longest time as the little brothers in the Western Conference. A team that was fun to watch but wasn’t exactly quite there yet. They could pull off an upset here and there but eventually the big bosses of the Western Conference would squish them, until now.
The thing is, these guys are expected to be the focuses of each team respectively. The Cavaliers will look to eliminate Curry’s playmaking and shooting ability, forcing him out of his comfort zone and making him find different ways to score. The Warriors may look to let LeBron try and do it all on his own, much like the 2011 Dallas Mavericks did. Let LeBron shoot whenever he likes and let him dictate the pace for his team but don’t allow Kyrie Irving or J.R. Smith to have big games and kill you.
It’s key for both teams to focus on the stars but what actually is more important, not allowing the role players to decimate your strategy. And by role players, I don’t mean Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, J.R. Smith or Draymond Green. Those guys will garner a lot of attention. The most important players for each team will be those guys who you wouldn’t expect to dictate the series, either on offense or defense. These are the guys who didn’t get a lot of attention throughout the season but now will have a magnifying glass on them from national media and the team scouts alike. The role players will be the ones that win the 2015 NBA Finals.
Tristan Thompson
For one reason or another, it appears that the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks forgot about him. They just ignored Tristan Thompson and the damage he causes on the interior for the Cavs. Tristan killed it throughout the playoffs with a 13.4 offensive rebounding percentage, which is the best in the NBA throughout the playoffs for guys who played at least 8 games at a minimum of 15 minutes per game. He also is in the top 10 of total rebounding percentage and has filled in well for Cleveland playing increased minutes since Kevin Love went down with his shoulder injury.
Couple those awesome rebounding stats with his net rating of 11.4 which is good for fourth in the playoffs with a 98.6 defensive rating and along with top 10 rankings in both effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage and Thompson is a formidable big man for the Warriors to be worried about. Thompson might command a defensive assignment from both Draymond Green and David Lee.
Harrison Barnes
The man who should primarily have the defensive assignment on LeBron James might actually be important for a multitude of reasons. Barnes combination of size and quickness allows him to be a great matchup on LeBron James. Barnes will have the ability to matchup with LeBron in the post while he can also closeout on any attempt LeBron might take coming off a screen. Harrison can also keep up with LeBron but the thing is, he most likely won’t shut him down. Unless he gets completely into LeBron’s pocket and bothers him much like DeShawn Stevenson or Kawhi Leonard have done in past finals, it might be a lot of recovery for Barnes.
Barnes is athletic enough to get instant offense and he can also get up some deep shots when he’s open. Considering the Cavs might cross match LeBron onto Klay Thompson or Draymond Green and allow Barnes to either get matched up with a smaller defender or a slower defender can open up a whole different can of worms for the Cavs defensively. It can allow Barnes to post up the small guy or fight around some screens, get away from the big and slow defender to get open for some deep shots. His versatility on both sides of the ball could be a problem, depending on what version of Harrison Barnes shows up.
Iman Shumpert
He’s so important to Cleveland primarily for his defense. Iman Shumpert will have the duty of defending one of the Splash Brothers to start the series but whether it is Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson will remain to be seen. His primary focus will be on the defensive end as his offense struggles do present problems at times. He’s averaging just over 10 points in the playoffs, shooting nearly 40 percent from the field so he won’t be looked at to scorch the earth on a nightly basis. Shumpert as the starting shooting guard for the Cavs will be the main perimeter defender for the decorated Warriors backcourt and don’t expect him to let anything get by him easily. He played great defense in the Cavs Eastern Conference Finals sweep against the Atlanta Hawks, primarily matched up with Jeff Teague or one of the outside shooters for Atlanta.
Shumpert is a streaky shooter so his offense can come but it’s not expected to happen often. He’ll need to provide amazing lockdown defense in order to provide what the Cavs need to win this series.
Andrew Bogut/Timofey Mozgov
Both men are the anchors for their defense and they will have some battles in the paint. Bogut and Mozgov can both defend the rim very well and aren’t afraid of some contact. Bogut and Mozgov will be two international guys fighting to represent their countries and their teams at the same time. Mozgov and Bogut both run the pick and roll very well and they also defend it very well. Neither of them will have to defend a big man who can stretch the floor very often and don’t expect them to leave the side of the other. Mozgov and Bogut are relatively similar players stylistically and both are the deciding factor for their respective teams interior defense. The two foreign 7-footers will get to know each other very well in the 2015 NBA Finals.
Matthew Dellavedova
For one reason or another, Matthew Dellavedova has become either one of your favorite players or has become a guy comparable to Patrick Beverly as one of those annoying guys you hate to see on the court. Delly has managed to make a name for himself in these playoffs, with some stellar play in a couple games and he’s also stirred up some controversy at the same time.
Dellavedova is one of the two Aussie’s playing in the 2015 NBA Finals, with his counterpart being Andrew Bogut on the Warriors. Dellavedova has played big minutes when Kyrie Irving went down with an injury and if Kyrie’s symptoms still linger it’s going to be his chore to defend the quicker and better Stephen Curry or the bigger and more cerebral Shaun Livingston. Delly coming off the bench is going to be a guy the Cavs will need to play big, especially with the team just getting more and more hurt as the playoffs go on.
Andre Iguodala
His role to me is undefined. Iggy is big enough to defend LeBron if Barnes struggles and he’s also smart enough to defend J.R. Smith coming off the bench as his primary matchup. The thing is, how will he fair offensively? His game has declined in a big way in the playoffs, especially shooting from the field and free throw line. Iguodala, a guy who once shot 82% from the free throw line in a season, has seen his percentage drop to 46% in these playoffs and has been the victim of some ‘Hack-A-Iguodala’ strategy. Much like Shumpert on the Cavs, he’ll need to rely on his defense to be a valuable contributor to his team
Honorable mention: Shaun Livingston, James Jones, David Lee, Mike Miller, Leandro Barbosa, Mo Speights (if healthy)
All stats courtesy NBA.com
