Point Blank – June 12, 2017
Has the Warriors circle of swagger been broken…Will John Lackey be lacking as summer heats up…
The basic math of the betting boards tells us that the 2017 NBA Championship is likely to be decided this evening at Oracle Arena in Oakland, the Warriors sitting at -8.5 in most key precincts (there is some -9 in Nevada), and from -320 to -360 on the Money Line. But while calling for this bunch to lose at home is indeed a bit of a long-shot, was the nature of what took place in Cleveland on Friday night, especially in the early stages that set the tone, a significant handicapping factor in terms of swagger and confidence for the teams?
That becomes the lead notion as we head to Game #5, and it also takes us to the fitting jukebox connection, as the tribute to Gregg Allman and the various pieces that made up one of the greatest bands of the Rock and Roll era continues. Along with Johnny Sandlin, Allman tweaked the lyrics for “Will the Circle be Unbroken” for his first solo album back in 1977, and this version brings us one of the better assemblages of talent there has ever been on one stage -
(Yes, bookmarking that link for future reference is the right thing to do.)
Item: Of all the various interpretations available for Game #4, does the swagger element matter most (has the Warrior “circle” been broken up a bit)
It isn’t easy to come away with strong conclusion regarding basketball tactics form Friday night because the flow was so unusual, and also because that early flow also established a working margin that greatly impacted just about everything that happened the rest of the way. And in truth I have only given the video a cursory look, once I realized that the post-mortem for the early moments was not going to be precise anyway.
Let me set it up. A social obligation, ironically involving industry folks, had been long set for last Friday, at a time on which there wasn’t much thought given to whether or not there would be a Finals game that night. We went ahead with it anyway (which was a good thing because it was a most splendid evening), but that meant not following the game much at all. Except on the way to the event, and that is where some insights were developed that have some merit.
Hubie Brown has always been my favorite NBA color analyst, someone that is more about breaking down the intricacies of the game as it unfolds on the court, rather than the personalities involved. He does not “sell” the event for ratings, he merely describes it, through the eyes of someone that understands the sport arguably as well as anyone ever has. It was in listening to Brown’s early commentary via the radio broadcast that I was hearing something that might not have jumped from the video, had I been watching instead – there was far more screening by Cleveland on offense to begin the game, which not only created some good looks, but also established a physicality as well. That ended up having a huge impact, not just in terms of the Cavaliers offensive efficiency, but in throwing the referees off stride.
At the end of the first quarter it was a shocking 49-33 scoreboard, Cleveland getting 24 FG attempts and 22 FT attempts, shattering previous highs for the opening period of a playoff game (Golden State was able to get 21 and 11 in those categories). The Cavs shot it well, making 14 of those opportunities, including 7-12 from 3-point range, but playing a key part in the high volume of opportunities were the whistles, the Warriors getting called for 13 fouls in the stanza. By the 1:56 mark, Draymond Green, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala had all picked up their second foul, which meant that the attempts to rally were going to be limited because much of their defensive aggressiveness was taken away by those counts.
As we set the stage for tonight, let’s go to Green for his take on that front - “When we’re tied up, what can we do?. When we’ve got guys – like Steph, Klay, me, KD – picking up two, three fouls in a hurry, it’s tough to bring the physicality. How can we play physical with some of the stuff going on out there tonight? Give credit to Kyrie and LeBron, they played like the stars that they are. Those guys wanted it. There was more going on out there. If we wanted to play more physical, how could we?”
There is no denying that some of that was real. The difficulty is in determining how much of that was caused by Cleveland using more screens, and creating a more physical tone. Watching the video to try to sort through that was a jumble – it was a chippy and physical opening to the game, and the officials were unable to corral it in a way that led to any game flow consistency.
But something else was also happening at the time, a psychological shift in the series. One of the notions I had maintained from the start, and in particular thought set the stage for Game #4, was that if the Warriors played near their best level, the Cavaliers might not be able to win a game. Regardless of how well they played. Friday may have punctured that balloon – Cleveland may have played at a level in that game that even the best of Golden State would have struggled to overcome. That means taking a moment to understand that in the context of the Monday pointspread, and let’s go to Kyrie Irving on that front –
“We finally settled in, man, it was about damn time, for all of us just to really see what playing well as a group looks like against a great team like the Warriors. We understand who they have on their team and what they’re about and how established they are, but I think that in those three losses we lost track of who we were. We’re still a special team as well. We are here for a reason. We’re going against a juggernaut of a team, but we’re a juggernaut of a team, too.”
The Cleveland performance was so good, that for once the Warriors faded a bit into the background.
What does it mean in terms of Game #5? It will be a more confident Cavaliers squad taking the Oracle court than in their losses by 113-91 and 132-113 in the first two games of the series. There is also a flip side – while I believed going into Friday night that the Warriors were prepared for a crescendo moment, might just a bit of the swagger have been lost?
Here is why it is so interesting – LeBron James has had multiple days off, which helps him to extend deeply into tonight’s game, and with the Game #4 impact being so dramatic it does allow for some fun with numbers. The Cavaliers are actually at a net plus in the PP100 charts when James has been on the court in the series. Let’s look at the breakdown for everyone that has had at least 100 minutes of playing time -
Player Min +/-
Iguodala 103 +16.7
Curry 148 +9.2
K. Thompson 148 +9.2
Green 133 +7.4
Durant 158 +5.3
James 166 +1.1
Love 131 -8.0
Irving 160 -11.0
Smith 105 -11.2
T. Thompson 102 -12.9
Now the hideous part for the Cavs, but also something for those of you involved in In-Running to have filed away, so that you can be quick on the trigger – Cleveland was a dreadful -23 in the 9:37 that James sat out over the last two games. To put that into perspective, that rate of incompetence would be the equivalent of losing a full game by 115 points.
How will I sort through all of this in terms of something that can be taken to the window? I begin the day in search of some Under 232, believing the markets have stretched too far. But the rest will come down to In-Running interpretations of the flow – the expected Golden State close-out of the series will likely be there, but it may not come easily.
Item: Has John Lackey already thrown about as well as he is going to this season
There is no question about how tough of a competitor Lackey is, over a career that now approaches 3000 innings. But I believe there may be some vulnerability to his game as the heat of summer approaches, so let’s develop a general point, and also make it be something actionable for Monday, with some #956 NY Mets Team Total Over (7:05 Eastern) going into pocket, with 4 good up to -135, and 4.5 working at even money.
Lackey gave the Cubs a solid 11-8/3.35 last season, part of that what the Cubs defense gave back to him, a career-best .255 BABIP that aided greatly in run suppression (FIP called the 2016 Lackey a 3.81, so the Cubs defense was worth about a half run per game for him). Lackey’s career BABIP is .302, and now 2017 is back to that level, .301 heading into tonight, as the defense behind him has gone from one of the best seasons in MLB history to merely being an average bunch. At this stage, Lackey needs good defense.
Here is the gist – it is tough enough to work through the long MLB grind when you are 38 years old, but another matter entirely when the last four years have brought regular-season counts of 189.1, 198, 218 and 188.1 innings, and then 62.1 frames in the post-season as well. Yet the cool early weather allowed Lackey to get out of the gate well this season, and after his first eight starts it was a respectable 4-3/4.37 as his bottom line. Since then it has been an 0-3/6.65, and I believe that will be the direction going forward.
The first-pitch temperature tonight should be above 90 degrees, and there is a hitter’s wind to right-center at CitiField, a challenge for Lackey given how much punch the Mets send out from the left side of the batter’s box. So I will begin to get in play now, and it does not hurt that a couple of the key set-up cogs in the Cubs bullpen, Edwards/Uehara, both carry fatigue ratings after working multiple innings on Sunday.
Why not the Mets as a side? My Jacob DeGrom power rating is only written in pencil this evening. DeGrom comes in off of the worst back-to-back cycle of his career, getting tagged for 15 runs, including four homers, over just eight innings vs. the Brewers and Rangers, but there is an * that goes with it.
Three starts back, Terry Collins left DeGrom out there into the 9th inning at Pittsburgh, stretching him out to 118 pitches despite having a comfortable 8-1 lead. It may have backfired, that pitch count leading to the fatigue of the last two poor performances. Now a pendulum may have swung, with DeGrom only throwing 69 pitches in the last outing at Texas, and when coupled with an extra day off as well, his physical freshness may be a plus. But that is only making the assumption that the two poor performances were attached to the Pittsburgh pitch count, and not a sign that something else may be wrong. Hence I will take him out of the equation, and put my Monday focus on the Mets offense being productive.
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