Armed with multiple long and physical defenders they could, in theory, switch onto LeBron James seamlessly, and equipped with the best help-and-recover system in basketball, the Golden State Warriors opened the NBA Finals daring James to beat them one-on-one.
The strategy is a somewhat risky one, potentially putting their top defenders in foul trouble and accepting a scoring outburst from the world's best player. The benefit is that they can keep rotations simple and tight, staying at home on the Cleveland Cavaliers shooters, and preventing James from getting the ball back with a mismatch later.
In Game 1, James scored a personal finals-best 44 points, but needed 38 field goal attempts to do so and turned the ball over four times. The Warriors won in overtime, and seemed pleased with the results of their defensive gambit after the fact.
"We'll live with him shooting a lot of shots and scoring 40," Warriors center Andrew Bogut said, pointing out that James was left to hoist tough, contested jumpers and was generally kept away from the rim.
That's an attitude James took issue with to some degree on Friday, essentially pulling a "check the resume" when asked about the Warriors strategy to allow him to score.
"You don't let me get 40," James said. "I go get 40. It's not like those guys are just getting out of the way."
And get out of the way they did not. Draymond Green, who had once trash-talked James so much that James felt the need to "finish it," found himself in foul trouble, Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson were only sporadically effective, and it took a herculean effort from Andre Iguodala, an otherworldly defender, to contain James.
How to guard James is the most interesting strategic element of the series. The Warriors are playing in a way that the Cavs should largely be happy with: It lets their best player attack one-on-one, the myriad of isolations and ISO-posts work to slow the pace of the game, it lets Cleveland hit the offensive glass, and it limits turnovers, slowing the Warriors' deadly transition game.
But for as much as it may be favorable from Cleveland's perspective, it didn't end in a victory Thursday. If Kyrie Irving misses time as expected, that puts an even greater offensive burden on James and could make the Warriors more comfortable sending help his way, with one less shooter on the floor.
The issue, as always, for Golden State, will be that James is James, and a 50-point night is far from out of the question at any point in the series.
