NBA Game Three Scheduled Tonight

By ESPN

These Warriors are the greatest offensive team in history, but they have made the Finals noncompetitive with their defense.

The Cavs have managed just 97.4 points per 100 possessions, a mark that would have ranked dead stinking last in the regular season. They entered the Finals having scored 120 points per 100 possessions against two average defenses and one very good one this postseason -- a number so far above the all-time record, held by these Warriors, as to look implausible when you actually type it out.

We knew the Warriors would score. Cleveland's hope was to score with them, pray the Warriors suffered a couple of cold shooting games, and ride LeBron's greatness. Those of us who thought Cleveland would at least be competitive -- guilty, having picked Warriors in six -- were optimistic about the Cavs sustaining top-level offense against Golden State. They wouldn't hit that 120 number. Maybe 110 would put them in it late.

Golden State has obliterated everything beyond LeBron's Game 2 transition attacks -- his gorgeous combinations of bulldozing force and tap-dancing, side-stepping footwork. The individual efforts have been outstanding: Green, a snarling, long-armed apparition, when not in foul trouble; Klay Thompson, hounding Kyrie Irving at every turn; and most of all, Kevin Durant, wrapping his best defensive season with two masterpiece performances. (Even so: Can we slow down on the "Durant is the best player in the world" talk? That came in record time.)

The collective is even stronger. Golden State has yielded only 98.8 points per 100 possessions through the playoffs, a full 9.2 points stingier than the league average over the postseason, per research from our crack staff at ESPN Stats & Information. That is the largest such gap ever, by a big margin, among teams that have made the Finals under the current playoff format (dating back to the 1983-84 season). The 1987-88 Bad Boy Pistons come second, having allowed 7.8 fewer points per 100 possessions than the league average. In other words: Adjusted for competition, Golden State might be the best defensive team ever to advance this far.

The Warriors are moving in sync, downloading every Cavalier movement, appearing in all the right places at all the right times. If the Cavs can't score, they can't set their defense, and their transition defense isn't coherent enough to withstand Golden State's fast-break attack amid matchup chaos.

Good defense isn't always spectacular. It resides in the absence of spectacle -- mistakes that don't happen, needless help avoided. Golden State is locked in.

The Cavs have Love at center there. Golden State's defense has played Tristan Thompson out of the series. The Warriors are not guarding him away from the ball. Golden State strangles lineups with five shooters. Give them one non-shooter, and the floor looks really small.

The Warriors have tossed the Cavs into a vicious cycle: Lineups with their best defensive players can't score enough, so Lue is turning to all-offense groups, only those have zero chance at stopping the Warriors.

The Love-at-center groups have been fine; Cleveland is plus-8 in 28 such minutes, per NBA.com. Golden State has destroyed every other lineup type -- including the all-scoring groups featuring both Love and Channing Frye, plus the super-small lineups with LeBron at center.

Cleveland probably can't win on those terms. Shifting big-to-small is a talent upgrade for Golden State, and a downgrade for the Cavs. Cleveland needs all sorts of combinations to work, but it really need its best players to play better in heavy minutes. That means more of Love and Thompson together, even against Death Lineup variants with Green at center -- a fun big-versus-small clash we've seen for only a few minutes.

Love has not been the problem, on either end. He has held up reasonably well in Golden State's pick-and-roll torture chamber. He can (barely) slide along with Curry, and recover just in time to disrupt Zaza Pachulia around the basket. Things get tougher against Green. Golden State pokes at Love over and over, and breakdowns are inevitable. Curry drilled a 3 right in Love's face during that third quarter eruption in Game 2. There was nothing Love could do about it, and that's the point: He can't jump, he's not long, and he doesn't worry Curry even when they are almost chest-to-chest.

But overall, Love has been good enough given what he provides on offense. The Cavs need him.

They need badly J.R. Smith, their best and perhaps only chance at two-way play on the wing beside LeBron. Our Dave McMenamin reported Sunday night that Cleveland might start Iman Shumpert over Smith in Game 3. That makes some sense. Shumpert can hit open 3s, and he can defend Curry, Klay Thompson, or Durant -- though Durant would exploit him over time.

But the Warriors will hide Curry on Shumpert, and otherwise ignore him. He is not a threat on Smith's level screening for LeBron in those pick-and-rolls targeting Curry -- plays that weirdly vanished in Game 2. Curry guarded the screener on only five pick-and-rolls in Game 2, down from 13 in the opener, when the Cavs largely aped the game plan that won them the title last season, per STATS SportVU data provided to ESPN.

Those plays didn't work as well as they had a year ago. Curry flashed in and out of LeBron's way, and deflected some passes.

The help behind him was impeccable; the combined speed and length of Green, Andre Iguodala, and Durant roaming the back line is almost unfair. Durant has been more brazen than most dare in abandoning LeBron and Love to swarm the ball, and he's so long and fast, he can recover in time. (Boston also took an extra step away from James over the last three games of the conference finals, and James responded with some well-timed cuts. He needs to do that again.)

The bet here is Smith starts Game 3, and we see more of LeBron hunting Curry.

Pachulia is a solid defender, and he's been quite good in this series. He just can't stay in front of Irving or James. Going at him represents a way to make Tristan Thompson useful, and if Thompson isn't useful on Wednesday, the series might be over.

Wednesday, June 7 Schedule (Time Central)

Golden State at Cleveland, 8 p.m.

NBA Finals -- Game 3

Thursday, June 8

No game scheduled

Friday, June 9 Schedule (Time Central)

Golden State at Cleveland, 8 p.m.

NBA Finals -- Game 4