Hassan Whiteside on smallball: 'I'm a little different from Mozgov. I can score a lot better'

For many, the Golden State Warriors' championship is more than just a victory for Stephen Curry and Co. It's a victory for the strategy of smallball.

The Warriors famously defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers by going small. Despite Cleveland's bruising frontcourt, the Warriors opted for a lineup with four wings and one 6-foot-7 big in Draymond Green. Using speed, athleticism, and shooting, the Warriors' smallball unit helped unlock Cleveland's lockdown defense and defeat LeBron James in six games.

Most importantly, the Warriors were able to change the game. Through Games 1-3, the style of the Finals favored Cleveland. But with Steve Kerr's last-second lineup change prior to Game 4, the Warriors made playing two plodding bigs untenable for Cleveland.

In the wake of their victory, popular narrative has rushed to coronate smallball at the expense of post-play, propping the Warriors' title as a shining example of a basketball revolution.

But Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside sees it differently. The Warriors' win doesn't necessarily spell doom for bigs.

"It's just a matter of perspective," Whiteside told Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "I mean, there's some talented big men out there that can score and I really think that they're trying to change it. But I really think that the game of basketball should be played with big men."

In Steve Kerr's own words, it wasn't a Finals for bigs. He backed up that talk by benching an all-NBA defender in Andrew Bogut in favor of eventual Finals MVP Andre Iguodala. The move, in turn, forced Cleveland to limit Timofey Mozgov's minutes.

But basketball is still about talent. Mozgov and teammate Tristan Thompson didn't have the scoring prowess to make up for their defensive deficiencies against smallball, so it forced David Blatt to split them up. The Warriors didn't dare try super small lineups against teams with imposing frontlines like the Memphis Grizzlies or Houston Rockets.

For that reason, Whiteside (who averaged 11.8 points, 10 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in 23.8 minutes per game) believes that talented post players like himself are still very much viable in the modern NBA characterized by smallball strategies.

"They're going to have to guard me, too, down there," he said. "I'm a little different from Mozgov. I can score a lot better. You've got to make 'em pay on the other end. You just can't feed into the small ball. You've just got to really beat 'em on a rebound and get low-post scoring."