NBA PM: How David Blatt Gave Away The Finals

How David Blatt Gave Away The NBA Finals

There isn’t a prepackaged Hollywood script on how to navigate the road to a NBA championship. The 82-game NBA regular season, filled with grueling back-to-backs and constant travel, is a maker of men. The subsequent two-month playoff march for the opportunity to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy further weeds out pretenders from the true contenders. It’s the reason why young teams around the league, overflowing with flash and style, are typically watching from their respective couches each June.

Veteran, tough-minded, experienced teams are able to navigate the course.

When you factor in the numerous opportunities along the journey to fall victim to raging egos, looming free agencies, salary demands, internal locker room beefs, front office rifts with the coaching staff, season-ending injuries, the referee’s whistle and pressure from the media and fans, winning a title should be defined as a career achievement.

Cavaliers head coach David Blatt has spent the majority of his rookie campaign roaming the sidelines in Cleveland not receiving the benefit of the doubt and even has had his job security questioned on multiple occasions. The Cavaliers, of course, employ the highest paid assistant coach in the league in Tyronn Lue – who also has allies in the media ranks from his days as a player. So the constant speculation on Blatt’s job security is par for the course. Simply put, it comes with the territory of a high-profile job.

There’s an old adage in coaching that says sideline generals get too much credit for wins and too much blame when their team loses. For Blatt, heading into a win or go home Game 6, this is one of those times he’ll have to face some blame.

The Cavaliers, playing without All-Stars Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, have unexpectedly given the Golden State Warriors all they can handle in these NBA Finals. While Cleveland now finds themselves down 3-2 in the series, they once owned a 2-1 lead and had the Warriors on the ropes.

At one point, Cleveland had all of the momentum over Golden State. Four-time MVP LeBron James was leading a cast of unheralded characters to a potential title over the league’s best regular season team – the type of underdog stuff that is primed for a blockbuster Disney movie about overcoming the odds.

The Cavaliers were shorthanded, undermanned and outgunned at almost every position. But Cleveland had two things working for them: the best player in the game in James and the fact that the team approached the first three games of the series like a pack of wild dogs.

On paper, Golden State should have won this series handily. But the Cavaliers’ dead game, no-frills approach early on in the series negated the talent differential. The Cavaliers won the offensive rebounding battles. Cleveland was tenacious on defense and gave the Warriors fits with their high activity levels. The Cavaliers seemingly came up with all of the 50/50 loose balls. They slowed down the pace. And of course, James is putting up one of the best individual performances in Finals history.

If this was a boxing match, Cleveland simply took the more polished and stylistically better fighter and turned the contest into an ugly street brawl, which gave them than opportunity to win. Cleveland was successful in imposing their will on the more talented Warriors. When Golden State wanted to jab and dance, Cleveland was able to clinch and slug it out on the inside. The result? Cleveland held a 2-1 series lead and had an opportunity, at home, to take a commanding lead.

But something positive happened for the Warriors at the end of Game 3, a contest they would eventually lose. The team figured out that their small lineup gave Cleveland fits and made the adjustment full-time in Game 4. The result? Two straight convincing victories for the Warriors after nearly pulling off a miraculous comeback at the end of Game 3.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr brilliantly made the adjustment without blinking. Former No. 1 overall pick Andrew Bogut, on the books for $12 million this season and the team’s starting center most of the season, has played a grand total of two minutes and 46 seconds in the past two games.

Game 5 could have been different for the Cavaliers. And this is where Blatt’s decision making comes into play. After finding solid success early on making the series a low-possession, half-court-oriented, defensive-minded affair, the Cavaliers went away from their approach in Game 5.

Because of Kerr’s small-ball adjustment, Blatt decided early in Game 5 that his center Timofey Mozgov wouldn’t be effective in the flow (pace) of the game. Blatt subbed Mozgov within five minutes into the first quarter. The center would ultimately wind up only playing nine minutes for the entire game – after posting 28 points and 10 rebounds in the team’s Game 4 loss (against that same Warriors small lineup).

At this point, by willingly deciding to go small ball themselves, the Cavaliers went from a team trying to impose their will on the more talented Warriors, to a team attempting match fire with fire – dangerously playing into the more talented (and deeper) team’s wheelhouse.

It’s important to note Mozgov entered Game 5 with Finals averages of 16.8 points and 8.3 rebounds. The center had grabbed 11 offensive rebounds in the series before Game 5, provided solid rim protection and, most importantly, gave Cleveland another offensive weapon to help James’ workload in half court sets.

Playing Mozgov a grand total of nine minutes in Game 5 helped Golden State out-rebound the Cavaliers, 14-7, in the fourth quarter of a winnable contest. The Warriors snatched offensive rebound after offensive rebound during the critical late stages of the game and made the Cavaliers pay for those second chance opportunities. Veterans James Jones and Mike Miller, both at the end of very respectable careers, combined to play 30 minutes scoring just three points, grabbing only one rebound and registering six personal fouls.

The biggest problem the Cavaliers have had in this series, with all of the injuries, is finding a consistent producer on offense next to James. Mozgov was the most consistent and he was ultimately iced, not by what Golden State schemed up for him through strategic adjustments, but by his own head coach choosing to play the Warriors’ style of the game – on the road.

After the contest, Blatt publicly stuck to his guns in his decision to play Mozgov less than 10 minutes in a critical must-win situation.

“Well, we were in the game the way we were playing,” Blatt said after the Game 5 loss, according to Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group. “We were right there. So that’s the way that we played it.

“I thought that was our best chance to win the game, and we were definitely in the game with a chance to win. So that’s the way we played it. So I thought I was pretty clear with that.”

On the other side, Kerr seemingly knew the momentum was shifting when Blatt opted to go small. League MVP Stephen Curry erupted for 37 points and Kerr feels it was aided by the Cavaliers’ strategic blunder.

“I thought from the very beginning when they went small, had their shooters out there, I thought this is Steph’s night,” Kerr said, according to Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News.

Cleveland had a recipe that was working. They had successfully imposed their will. Golden State made an adjustment and now has taken command of the series, imposing their will and showing grit and championship mettle in the process.

Hindsight is 20/20 so while Cleveland hasn’t responded well to the Warriors’ lineup revision, Blatt gets another crack at it Tuesday night to make amends for his Game 5 blunder.

The question is, has Blatt learned from this? Whether he admits it publicly or not, this was a mistake. Will he once again try to match what Golden State is doing or will he play to the strengths of the injury-ravaged squad he currently possesses?

Nuggets Reportedly Hire Mike Malone As Head Coach

The Denver Nuggets have reportedly decided to hire Mike Malone as their next head coach, rather than going with Mike D’Antoni or sticking with interim head coach Melvin Hunt, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.

Last season, the Nuggets had playoff aspirations entering the year, but finished the campaign a disappointing 30-52. This led to former head coach Brian Shaw being fired and while Hunt did a solid job leading the team in his absence, the Nuggets were very impressed with Malone, according to Wojnarowski.

Malone last coached the Sacramento Kings this past season, but he was unexpectedly fired after a 11-13 start (during which the team’s star DeMarcus Cousins was hospitalized with viral meningitis).

Malone was 39-67 during his tenure in Sacramento, which was impressive considering where the rebuilding team was at when he took the helm.

The Nuggets have the seventh pick in the 2015 NBA Draft and may be open to trading Ty Lawson and Kenneth Faried among others this summer.