Turnovers
The Cleveland Cavaliers without a doubt have to take better care of the ball. We know the Cavs go as LeBron goes, whether that’s good or bad. Cleveland hung around for the majority of the first half because LeBron had his first ever post season double-double at half with 19 points, 11 boards, four assists, and shooting 5-8 from the floor.
The bad, however; LeBron had eight turnovers by himself.
If there was ever a team in the history of basketball that you cannot afford to turn the ball over against the most, it is this 2017 Golden State Warriors team. It makes their fast breaks even faster. It’s hard enough to stop them 5-on-5, but turning the ball over allows the Warriors to get mismatches in transition, and a lot of the time gives them a three on four or four on five opportunity.
Going into the game, you could tell Tyronn Lue put an emphasis on getting to their shooters in transition. So much so, that a lot of the time Cleveland left the ball alone for uncontested rim rattling throw downs.
KD got the VIP treatment to the rim last night. [@Gatorade] pic.twitter.com/JnG9d6GiS2
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 2, 2017
You can see in the clip above, Klay Thompson gets a steal pushes it ahead to KD who catches it just beyond the half court line. They now have a three-on-two break because of a turnover, but all they’re worried about is giving up a three rather than picking up the ball first.
J.R. Smith sprints to Steph in the corner like he has the ball, rolling out the red carpet for Durant to break the rim in half.
This happened multiple times last night, and could be avoided by taking care of the basketball. Cleveland had 20 total turnovers compared to Golden States four. That is roughly 13 times (7 were deadball turnovers) the Warriors had numbers in their favor on fastbreak opportunities.
That is 13 uncontested shots either at the rim, or on the three-point line, which is basically the same thing for this team.