2014-2015 NBA Playoffs Round 4

I have had the Warriors for a few rounds now, and am not changing. They were the best team all year, and nothing has substantially changed. Dubs in 5 over the Cavs. A sweep wouldn’t surprise me.

Honestly, I had to take a step back before making my prediction because I wanted to remove my biases. I have never liked Lebron, just not my style of superstar. The Cavs team is built terribly, and is going to sink itself this offseason by extending JR, Iman, and Thompson while Love runs away. They traded a career of Wiggins for an incomplete season of Love, which sounds insane. They run painful offensive sets and their defense, while much better in the playoffs to be fair, is not that good. Kyrie is a turnstile.

Meanwhile, I love these Warriors. Curry is what I made Steve Nash be in 2K for years: a freak shooter and passer who has 30 point/10 assist games with 7 3s. It just never happened in real life until Steph came into the league. Klay won me a fantasy title at the end of his rookie year (the Dubs were terrible and injured so they let a rookie SG just take as many shots as he wanted. It was fantastic for fantasy purposes). Barnes was one of my favorite college players. Bogut was a 2K mainstay in the early part of his career: I had sneaky Bucks’ wins when my opponents couldn’t name half the team (Redd and Mo Williams!). Iguodala was one of my favorite players of the last decade, still an underrated (if now overpaid) Swiss Army knife, leader, and awesome competitor. Barbosa can get a ring to represent all those Suns from the mid  to late 00’s that deserve one. However, I think my biases can be put aside for this prediction. Simply, the Warriors are so much better by any metric. They are a child of the D’Antoni Suns and 14-15 Spurs.

Honestly, I don’t think the Cavs are that good. I feel stronger about this one on paper than I did about the Spurs over the Cavs last season. They Xs and Os are more conclusive. There is a leadership factor to input because Lebron has been here and Golden State has not. However, Golden State isn’t exactly a young team. Green. Barnes, and Klay are still relatively green. However, Green and Barnes have been in the playoffs every year of their career. Steph is in year 6, Bogut and Lee have 10 years in the NBA at this point, and guys like Barbosa, Iguodala and Livingston have been around a long while. The Cavs, outside of Lebron and Perkins, really don’t have much more experience under pressure. If anything, they have less. Kyrie, Thompson, and Shumpert have few high leverage reps in their career.

Kerr has outcoached Blatt all year. Kerr gets the rookie coach title, but worked as a GM for so many years with a good team in Phoenix (and now has high class assistant coaches with him in Golden State) that his relative coaching age isn’t “rookie”. Blatt has been better in the playoffs than the regular season, but still makes stupid mistakes.

In terms of matchups, there are two glaring issues. The first is that there is nowhere to hide Kyrie. He can’t guard Steph, and Klay/Barnes would be a disaster in the post or while running around screens. No matter what you do, Kyrie is a sieve defensively. Take him out of the game because of his defensive liabilities, and then you don’t have to worry as much on the other end about defending the CLE PG spot.

The second issue is Lebron. No one can guard him, still. However, in the playoffs his jumper is broken and I don’t think a week is going to fix it. For the first time in a long time, Lebron is in part getting stats and impact through sheer numbers of possessions, not shot efficiency. Part of his allure was that he got 25 points on 15 shots. Now he is getting 30 on 25 shots. The 3s are not falling. So, the gameplan should be to find people who can slow him down and force him to take jumpers. Ignore the times he makes them and go forward. The Spurs did it with Leonard. Most teams have 1 or 0 guys who can make an attempt. Jimmy Butler did okay, and Carroll, before the injury, was again okay at it. The reason I love this matchup for the Warriors is that they have 4 guys who can do an acceptable job on Lebron.

Draymond Green is a great match for Lebron among all available defenders. Iguodala has always been a good option and is still viable. Harrison Barnes has the length and youth to be a really good third defensive option and one that Golden State doesn’t have to panic about when a switch happens. Klay Thompson isn’t the greatest option on Lebron, but he plays good hard defense using his length on opponents. He will have Kyrie I’d assume (consider how well Klay defends CP3 and Mike Conley), but like with Barnes the Warriors won’t panic if he gets switched on Lebron. Most teams would love to have Klay as the 4^th option defensively on Lebron.

Generally, the Warriors can switch just about everything and that is a major key to their success defensively. Bogut guarded Tony Allen as the key adjustment in the second round for goodness’ sake. The Cavs always have to hide Kyrie, and bench Mozgov when something just doesn’t work with him. The Warriors may blitz with the Curry/Klay/Barnes/Iggy/Green lineup and I have no idea how the Cavs contain that unless they try Lebron at the 5 himself. The 3 point shooters Cleveland uses in James Jones and Mike Miller would get abused this series where they walked about unscathed in the Hawks’ series. Plus, you know, there is the Curry problem. If Lebron covers Curry that’d be most effective, but would have devastating impact in the rest of the matchups. Barnes, Green, and Iggy would kill whoever they got in the cross match.  

The numbers suggest a very efficient series victory for Golden State. I think Golden State got its scare in the past series injury wise and in the previous series with their invincibility bubble popped. Cleveland has been overachieving for a while now, and taking advantage of a really easy Eastern Conference. Curry completes the incredibly hard (and statistically unlikely) task of being able to beat each of the other four All-NBA performers in 4 consecutive rounds.

Favorite Young PG

+3. Remember that number. It will be important later. Also remember 23-10-9.

Let’s talk about players A, B, C, and D first though. All are point guards. 

During Player A and C’s first two seasons, they averaged 16/21 points per game, and 18/22 respectively. They were playmakers in other senses, with just under and over 7 assists respectively in those seasons. They took a franchise in a non glamour city and made them relevant. They were cool, flashy, SMOOTH, and were the hope of the league. And, they were injury prone, undeniably. Player A was better from the field and Player C better from 3, but otherwise these two guys profile similarly. They are HIGHLIGHT players, dynamic in personality, and the name recognition is strong and lasting.

During Player B and D’s first two seasons, the point averages were more like 12/15 and 10/13. However, the assists were higher. Player B hit 7.5 and almost 10, and D just under and over 8. Both players showed a ridiculous tendency to turn the ball over…but also thieve it. These players are more complicated by the percentage splits, shooting in the late 30’s, barely forcing a 3 in per game. But both players are LEADERS on their teams. They don’t lead the team in scoring, but have the biggest presence. And man, sometimes it gets turned over, but their passes look GOOD. Players A and C put on the SHOW. Players B and D RUN the show.

It seems like all 4 will be successful, but different, players. Their careers should be exciting to watch. But as much as I have admiration for them, player D consistently jumps out as my favorite. He is my hope for Best Point Guard of the future. Player D is Ricky Rubio. Player C is Kyrie Irving.

I love Kyrie, I do. I pretty much scheduled a 4 day trip to Brooklyn to see the Cavs come play there. And he is a silky smooth scorer, no doubt about it. But this injury thing is starting to worry me. Sure, Rubio had his too, but it was a single freak occurrence in a 5 year professional career bereft of them. Kyrie missed time in college and his first two years with a litany of small ones, weird ones, and oddly broken bones. This is one reason I am buying more Rubio stock than Kyrie stock.

The other is Players A and B. Player A, so closely profiled to Kyrie, was Penny Hardaway in 93-95. He had such a similar beginning and fizzled out. Player B, who is so close to Rubio’s beginning? Jason Kidd, 94-96.

These comparisons are of course somewhat arbitrary and unfair. But I just see it all lined up too well. I see Rubio’s basketball IQ allowing him to work with some better teammates to get to the Finals 3-6 years from now. I can also see him slowly develop a better jump shot, and a set 3. He can totally follow that Jason Kidd path of being the 3^rd or 4^th best player on a contender later in his career as well. And funny enough, I can totally see it being on another team.

Like Penny, I think Kyrie will have too much on him, especially considering he is already injury prone. And I hope I am wrong, I hope he more mirrors Iverson (for longevity and sustained excellence, not attitude). That will be amazing to watch. But I don’t think I’m wrong. Maybe if Lebron comes to Cleveland and does the Wade thing all over again (lets the slashing guard take 25% less hits and get 25% more open shots) it will really push Kyrie in a better position, but I still see a player who will average 60 games a year instead of 80. And more importantly I think his prime is shorter than Rubio’s.

Rubio is already showing better than Jason’s curve in shooting. He is also going to the line more, earlier in his career and shooting close to 80% there. His turnovers are also a bit smaller at this point. His steals numbers are pretty on average with Kidd’s for steals, but they have spiked more lately. And that’s the funny thing. Rubio’s season averages this year are going to look pretty similar or actually worse than last year’s. It is a nice illusion (one I hope will get his draft ADP to drop next year for fantasy purposes). See, during the few weeks he was getting used to his new knee, he had quite a few 0-3, 4 assist kind of nights. But since February 1^st, Rubio has absolutely dominated, putting up a 13.5 / 5.4 / 8.6 line with 2.7 steals. Not only is this sustainable, he can better it easily.  

That brings me to last night. I was looking at two Rubio related numbers. The first was +3. That is what the Wolves got in terms of points versus Memphis. A bad team minus its All Star in Kevin Love is only getting 3 points versus one of the best teams in the West, a team which has a top defense and will probably host the first round of the playoffs. I don’t know if that is respect, the sharps and bookmakers actually following how competitive the Wolves currently are, or Memphis’s run of back to backs, but it is still a tiny line.

After all, the Wolves this month lost to the Lakers by 3 and CHI by 7. They beat OKC by 8, DET by 13, PHO by 31, SA by 24, and WAS by 5. Without Love, frequently without Kirilenko and Pekovic, Rubio is making the Boston Steamer and Dante Cunningham semi efficient scorers right now. Bill Simmons should get credit for this point: “Rubio is making Derrick Williams look like a professional basketball player”. Yup, that’s actually all I really needed to write.

The second numbers I was looking at were 23-10-9. That is what Ricky threw up in said game versus tough Memphis last night. They lost, but he was brilliant. And he was 10 of 12 from the line. Yeah, I’m hoping on this train. And guess what? David Kahn may have been right in saving the 5 year deal for Rubio and not giving it to Love.

And one final thing? Rubio reminds me a lot of Rondo too. Rondo is better, has been better. But now I am convinced Rubio will be the superior player long term. It is all there in the numbers. And, in the way he holds himself. This guys lives and breathes high IQ and exciting basketball. Here’s hoping for 15 years of it.

And I will allow myself one excessive Rubio call.

Rubio! Rubio! Ru-be-OOOOOOH!