SAN FRANCISCO: Throughout the last two thrilling NBA Finals, the Cavaliers’ scouting report on the Golden State Warriors started and ended with Steph Curry.
For all of the talent gushing out of the Warriors locker room, the Cavs devoted the most time to blanketing Curry and making life as miserable as possible for the two-time Most Valuable Player.
As the two best teams in the league prepare to meet again Monday night at Oracle Arena, that hasn’t really changed. The Warriors have taken the ball out of Curry’s hands at times this season to better acclimate Kevin Durant to their system, but Curry is still the Cavs’ focal point.
“You pay a lot of attention to Steph,” LeBron James said Sunday. “He’s a two-time MVP for a reason.”
The Cavs held Curry to 15 points on 4-of-11 shooting on their Christmas Day game, but Durant scorched them for 36 points. Curry is averaging 23.6 points against them (regular season and postseason combined) since the start of the 2014-15 season (18 games). The Cavs have done a nice job of taking him out of games at times, but Durant now adds another layer to their problems.
“When you’re able to have Steph have a bad game, which is not very often, they have a guy who can go get it one on one,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “And Durant did that in the first game. You always have that guy who can go get it on his own. So, we’ve tried to do a good job of taking Klay [Thompson] out, taking Steph out, taking the 3-point shooting out. If you do that nowadays, when Kevin is here now he can go one on one, he can go score 40. So, that’s a different dynamic they have on their team.”
As the NBA game continues to evolve, so does this rivalry — and yes, it is indeed a rivalry. The Cavs got their first look at the Warriors with Durant on Christmas and now have a little better idea of what to expect. Now the Warriors get their first look at the Cavs with Kyle Korver. And while Korver isn’t the same caliber player as Durant, he adds a motion dimension they haven’t seen before.
The Cavs’ practice Sunday was their first in 18 days. It came at a good time, given Monday’s opponent, and the fact it served as a chance to get Korver a little more integrated into their system.
“This is a different dynamic they haven’t seen,” Lue said of Korver. “A guy running off pindowns, off screens. The style in which he plays is really different from what they’ve seen the past two years from our team, so we’ll just see how they adjust to that.”
Korver understands what it means to be the focal point of the Cavs’ defense. He was targeted whenever the Cavs played the Atlanta Hawks similar to how the Cavs attack Curry.
Now he’s taking a crash course in the Cavs’ system and this rivalry. James has been slow to call it a rivalry in recent days, but Lue acknowledged prior to the Christmas Day game it’s a big rivalry and Korver, who just recently arrived, agrees.
“It’s a rivalry, it feels like,” Korver said. “I don’t know how many of them there are in the NBA right now, but this feels like it’s at the top. Those are fun to be a part of. They’re heated, they’re competitive, there are great players on both sides, and these guys have played against each other so much the last couple of years. This is my first time walking into it, so I’m just going to try to add to what they’ve been doing.”
James has spent two days denying it’s a rivalry, yet he caused a stir with decorations scattered throughout his Halloween party a couple months ago that mocked the Warriors and the fact they became the first team in Finals history to blow a 3-1 lead.
“That’s far removed, man. There were a lot of people featured [at the party],” James said. “I was also featured in there too. But that’s water under the bridge.”
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ.