The insertion of Shaun Livingston into the Warriors starting
lineup causes major changes to this matchup, and not too many of these changes
actually help Portland. The clearest of which is…
Livingston’s Post Domination
Clearly, the Warriors are a less potent offense without
Steph Curry. To suggest otherwise would be absurd. However, Livingston’s
ability to work out of the post has been more of a focal point since Curry went
down, and creates a massive problem for Portland’s backcourt.
In the regular season, Livingston was one of the better
scorers out of the post in the entire NBA. His 50.5% shooting and 1.0 Points
Per Posession average place him in the 87th percentile in effectiveness
out of post ups. In the first round against Houston, Livingston’s role
increased without any drop off in efficiency. In his 3 starts, he averaged 16
Points per game on 66.7% shooting, blowing away his regular season numbers of
6.3 PPG and 53.6% shooting. Most of that post work came with Rockets PG Patrick
Beverly on him, who ranked in the 74th percentile of in post defense
during the regular season, allowing only 35.1% shooting and .76 PPP.
While the Portland backcourt of Damian Lillard & CJ McCollum
is one of the most explosive in the league, neither have great size and both have
lackluster defensive reputations. Standing at 6’4” and 6’3”, McCollum and
Lillard give away 3+ inches of height to the 6’7” Livingston.
McCollum in particular could be a major target of the
offensive game plan. CJ graded out as an abysmal post defender this season,
allowing 50% shooting and 1.01 points per possession, which slots him in the 17th
percentile across the league. Lillard grades out better in the post than
McCollum, but is still below league average at .88 PPP, good for the 46th
percentile.
No matter which of the Portland guards matches up with
Livingston, Shaun should be able work in the post with relative ease. Now,
Portland could get creative and put 6’9” Al-Farouq Aminu or Moe Harkless on Livingston and wipe
out his size advantage, and since Shaun doesn’t have much shooting range, that
could severely hamper Livingston’s offensive contributions. However, if the
Blazers go this route, that just leads to…
The Chain Reaction
So let’s say Aminu or Harkless end up guarding Livingston to keep
Lillard and McCollum from getting ground into dust on the box. That means
Portland’s backcourt has to guard Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes, and that
will not end well.
While Lillard is still below average defensively in the
post, he’s actually much worse everywhere else. He consistently gets wiped out
trying to navigate screens, leading to open shots, and statistically allows a
better than average shooting percentage to his opponent from everywhere on
the floor. Asking him to guard Thompson is just inviting him to go off for 30
plus points, and also would drain Lillard’s energy and almost certainly negatively effect his
offensive performance. Making matters worse, Golden State would likely have
Harrison Barnes go to work on McCollum and his atrocious post defense. While
Barnes has struggled with his jumper in the playoffs, he was a solidly above
average offensive player out of the post this season, with numbers that put him
in the 70th percentile.
So odds are against Portland giving Lillard the Thompson
assignment, which means in this scenario CJ McCollum gets the matchup, which
isn’t much better. While McCollum is a better defender than Lillard, he’s still
below average, and possibly the biggest problem is his size. Klay has torched
shorter defenders his entire career, in no small part because at 6’7” and with
the high release on his shot, he’s able to shoot over shorter defenders like
they’re not even there, and his history against Portland in particular backs
that up. Klay averaged 29.3 PPG against Portland this season on 54.5% shooting
and 59% from 3. Going back to last year, Klay has shot 51.8% from the field and
55% from 3 point range in his last 7 games against Portland. For two years,
Portland hasn’t had any success in stopping Thompson.
So the most likely defensive alignment for Portland is Aminu or Harkless guarding Thompson with the other on Draymond Green, Lillard “hiding” on Harrison Barnes, and McCollum and his 17th
percentile post defense matched up with Livingston, and we’re right back where
we started. So while Curry’s loss will definitely hurt, Livingston minimizes
that loss on the offensive end with his post-game, which is not good news for
Portland because…
The Defense Gets Better
Contrary to popular belief, Stephen Curry is not a bad
defensive player. He’s not necessarily “good” but he’s not a negative and
consistently grades out between average and slightly above average, by both the
eye test and advanced statistics.
Livingston, however is better. He’s long and quick with good
defensive instincts to hound players. His slight frame leaves him vulnerable to
be bullied by stronger guards like James Harden, but neither McCollum nor
Lillard have the size or style of play to pull that off. Expecting Livingston
to shut down either Portland guard is absurd, of course, but the 5th
most efficient defense in the regular season gets an upgrade at the PG spot,
and with Livingston’s larger role, held the Rockets to the worst offensive performance
of all playoff teams.
The Blazers scored fairly well against Golden State in the
regular season, but there’s reason to believe that might not hold up, since
with Livingston on the floor…
The Hare Becomes the Tortoise
According to basketball-reference.com, the Golden State
Warriors pace factor, which is a rough measure of how fast of a tempo a team
plays with, was 99.3, making them the 2nd fastest team in the
league. In the four matchups with Portland, the pace factor was an average of
101.3, with a high of 108.7 in Portland’s lone victory. In games Livingston
started in the 1st round against the Rockets, who were 7th
in the NBA in pace themselves, the pace factor was 94.8, which would have been
22nd in the NBA regular season. The Warriors, and defenses in
general, get sloppier as the pace quickens, as there are more fast breaks and
less time to get organized defensively before the offense starts attacking.
Considering Portland is not a terribly high octane offense to begin with (12th
in the regular season), odds are this series is played at a much slower pace,
and if Portland has to spend all series trying to break through a locked in
Golden State defense in the halfcourt, there offensive numbers will fall off a
cliff.
Now, where the Warriors don’t have nearly the advantage is
when Livingston is on the bench. Since he’s been coming off the bench playing shorter
minutes all year, Kerr has Livingston on a 30-minute limit to avoid tiring him
out. This means Ian Clark and Leandro Barbosa time is unavoidable, and while he
acquitted himself well against the Rockets, Clark is not a good defender and
can make some pretty inexplicable decisions on offense when he’s not scoring,
and Barbosa didn’t look great against the Rockets. The Blazers have to torch
the Warriors whenever either Clark or Barbosa are in the game, but I doubt Kerr
leaves either guy on the floor for too long against CJ and Dame. That means the
Portland backups will have to create some O, and I don’t believe they are up to
the task.
And if Steph comes back at any point this round, Portland has absolutely no shot.
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