There's no replacing Kyrie Irving for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Their second-best player is sidelined, their rotation is down to seven men, and the burden on the shoulders of LeBron James has grown even more immense.
But they have to try. Starting four players isn't an option, and a team that rosters James has every reason to decline saying "die."
Matthew Dellavedova will be tasked with trying to replace Irving in the starting lineup for Game 2 on Sunday.
The Cavs basically had two options. Dellavedova is a natural point guard but was torched by Steph Curry in Game 1, with the Golden State Warriors outscoring the Cavs by 13 points in the Australian's nine minutes of action. Starting J.R. Smith would have provided some additional shooting and let Iman Shumpert be the primary check on Curry, at the expense of an even greater ball-handling load for James.
Game 2's starting lineup has played 42 minutes together during the playoffs and has outscored opponents by 28.6 points per-100 possessions. That's an incredibly successful stretch, but the Warriors present far greater defensive challenges than Cleveland's earlier opponents. It's also in large part because of James alone, and it's when James hits the bench that the Irving-less Cavs could really struggle - they've been outscored by 17.9 points per-100 possessions without Irving, Kevin Love, and James on the floor in the playoffs.
Head coach David Blatt will likely call on Smith to play with the starters for at least spot minutes, and it may be Cleveland's best way of balancing their spacing and defense with Irving out. Dellavedova shot 40.7 percent on threes this season to 38.3 percent for Smith but Smith draws greater attention in the corners, has a quicker trigger, and can more capably be hidden on Klay Thompson than Dellavedova can.
Smith has only played six minutes with the rest of the starting five in the playoffs, rarely for more than a minute or two at a time.
