Are The Warriors Too Versatile For The Cavs To Handle?

This article is part of VICE Sports' 2016 NBA Playoffs coverage.

Golden State won an NBA-record 73 games during the regular season thanks in large part to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. The duo is widely regarded as the best-shooting backcourt in league history, and is in the conversation for best backcourt, period.

However, their skill and success sometimes overshadows the Warriors' greatest strength: versatility.

In Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Cleveland made Curry and Thompson look ordinary, holding them to a combined 8-of-27 shooting. Yet Golden State still found a way to run away with a 104-89 win, thanks to some key adjustments and the play of their bench.

Heading into tonight's Game 2, this has to worry the Cavs: take away the Warriors' two biggest scoring threats, and they can still put points on the board. Let's take a closer look at what happened, and what it may mean for the rest of the series:

The biggest adjustment that Golden State coach Steve Kerr made coming into the game was staggering his team's rotation.

Typically, the Warriors like to bring Maurice Speights in with their bench lineup, relying on him to space the floor alongside Festus Ezeli. The Cavs, on the other hand, have dominated bench lineups to start the second and fourth quarters during the playoffs by playing LeBron James in the frontcourt alongside Channing Frye and three shooters.

That tactic has worked for Cleveland, because most teams don't have an elite low post scorer on their bench who can punish Frye down low—and even when they do, that player is usually in a difficult cross-match trying to guard Frye on pick-and-pops. Anticipating this, the Warriors started the second quarter with Green at center, letting Harrison Barnes use his quickness and length to cover Frye on the perimeter and inside.

This adjustment forced the Cavs to abandon their preferred tactic of playing four-out basketball with James driving and dishing. After going to Frye for 30 seconds to start the quarter, Cleveland coach Ty Lue put Kevin Love back in the game, expecting him to punish the Golden State's small lineup inside. Instead, Love went 1-for-3 with two turnovers, and the Warriors turned a four-point lead into a 10-point lead over the first five minutes of the quarter.

The Cavs have a few options for Game 2. They can readjust their own rotation to find more minutes for Frye whenever Golden State has a more traditional center on the floor. They can roll the dice with their regular rotation, and see if Frye can hang with Green. Or they can go back to Love to start the second quarter and hope he's more effective; Love got good looks during that stretch, and may perform much better now that Cleveland knows what's coming.

The most likely adjustments? Look for Lue to get Frye on the court more against Andrew Bogut and Ezeli, and also use specific sets to get Love in the post whenever the Warriors try to guard him with Barnes. The Warriors caught the Cavs off guard in Game 1, but can't rely on the element of surprise for the rest of the series.

It's ironic: after struggling with Oklahoma City's height and athleticism in the Western Conference Finals, Golden State overwhelmed Cleveland with height. In addition to contesting shots at the rim, the Warriors' second unit was just too tall for the Cavs to guard one-on-one. Shaun Livingston had a team-high 20 points off of the bench—the first time that he led his team in scoring all season—and most of his shots came over shorter defenders.

According to SportVu player-tracking cameras, seven of Livingston's 10 field goal attempts were "tightly" contested, but that points a flaw in how the system evaluates which shots are "contested" and which shots are "open." Per SportVu, any shot taken with a defender within four feet of the shooter is considered "tightly contested"—but for the 6-foot-7 Livingston, the proximity of shorter defenders is almost irrelevant. Livingston knows that he can get his shot off at any time against Matthew Dellavedova, Kyrie Irving, JR Smith, and Iman Shumpert, without needing to create space or avoid getting blocked.

Cleveland doesn't have an easy answer for this. Livingston will continue to take—and make—"contested" shots over his shorter opponents whenever he gets to his sweet spot at the free throw line, so the best solution is to keep him away from the middle of the paint. Problem is, the Cavs can't focus all of their attention on doing do. Not when overplaying Livingston on cuts and drives will leave Thompson and Curry open on the wings. In Game 1, Cleveland picked its poison by staying home on the Splash Brothers, and Livingston poured the Cavs a tall glass of hemlock.

The Warriors didn't play their best basketball, and they know it. How so? Curry and Thompson combined to shoot 3-for-9 on "open" three-point attempts, including a couple of wide-open threes that could've been backbreakers for the Cavs. One second-quarter Curry shot in particular could've put the Warriors up by 18 points.

The Cavs deserve a bit of credit for how they guarded Curry and Thompson, but we've seen the two of them hit shots against much taller, more athletic, and more disciplined defenders. This doesn't bode well for Cleveland.

The Cavs are capable of outscoring anyone when they maximize their possessions—but, as they've done all year, they became stagnant and predictable in the halfcourt far too often. Most of the time, the idle offense was the result of Cleveland's efforts to exploit a mismatch in the post: on several occasions, the Cavs would take until the end of the shot clock to get the ball into the post, and by then, the Warriors would just double the ball and force chaos.

Cleveland needs to completely eliminate these types of possessions. If there's an opportunity to exploit a mismatch, great. Look for it as part of a continuous offense, or have weakside actions like ball-screens and cuts pre-scripted so that everyone knows how to make Golden State pay for doubling the ball.

Oh, and the Cavs also need to eliminate hero-ball possessions in transition. Kyrie Irving shot 1-for-9 on shots in which Cleveland didn't make a single pass. That's not good! Irving is a very capable isolation scorer, but those possessions are death against the Warriors if they don't go in.

Just as Curry and Thompson are likely to shoot better in Game 2, the Cavs are likely to finish better at the rim. Cleveland missed 20 shots within seven feet of the basket in Game 1—and while the Cavs were able to grab the offensive rebound on 10 of those misses, they were only able to immediately convert inside twice.

Meanwhile, Golden State grabbed the defensive rebound on eight of those missed shots. On seven of the eight ensuing possessions, the Warriors got an open shot off in the first nine seconds of the shot clock. In other words, they turned eight Cavs misses at the rim into 14 fast break points. And that number could've been even higher, as oth Barnes and Andre Iguodala missed wide-open looks from behind the arc on possessions following a Cavs miss at the rim.

Cleveland can't afford to keep making this tradeoff. The Cavs must convert their shots at the rim at a higher rate, or get to the line. In the few instances that they miss point-blank shots, they have to find a way to slow the Warriors down on the ensuing break. Had the Cavs simply converted on 65 percent of their Game 1 shots at the rim like they did during the regular season, they would've held a comfortable lead throughout. Golden State's defense deserves credit for making those shots harder than usual, but guys like James and Love are much more capable finishers than what we saw.

It was clear from the opening tip that Cleveland was going to overextend its defense against Curry and Thompson, daring the rest of the Warriors beat them. On the very first Warriors possession, James left Green wide-open behind the three-point line; on several possessions throughout the game, the Cavs trapped Curry and Thompson on ball screens, forcing guys like Anderson Varejao and Bogut to make scoring plays.

This tactic worked against Golden State's backcourt, but also allowed the rest of the Warriors to get far too comfortable. Why? Well, the Thunder were able to pressure the ball and rotate quickly enough to take away easy Golden State options. Cleveland, by contrast, gets excellent ball pressure, but completely loses guys on the weakside.

In Love, Irving and Smith, the Cavs start a trio of below-average defenders. Coming into the Finals, everyone assumed that the Warriors would look to isolate Love and Irving in pick-and-roll defense, and them punish them on switches. In Game 1, Golden State tried to do that, but that trio did a fair job of containing Curry in those situations. Unfortunately, they were far worse when tasked with providing weakside help, even giving up a handful of inexplicable offensive rebounds in situations where they should have cleaned the glass.

These sorts of mistakes have characterized Cleveland all season long, so it's unlikely they can simply wave the magic adjustment wand and make them go away. In Game 2 and the rest of the series, Lue is probably better off telling his players to focus on their offense and transition defense. It the Cavs have any chance of answering the Warriors' versatility in Game 2, it will start less with reinvention than with better execution.

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