Cavaliers-Hawks Series Preview: The Second Defender and The Second Unit

On Wednesday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Atlanta Hawks will begin what will certainly be an ultra-competitive Eastern Conference Finals. After a first half of the season where the Hawks looked to be far and away the best team the Eastern Conference had to offer, the Cavaliers came storming back after their pair of deals to dominate the second half and become the heavy favorite. Now, the Cavaliers have had to retool with their injuries, and the Hawks have had their moments of weakness against lesser opponents. What’s going to be the difference in this series and determine who moves on?

Behold: The Seconds.

The second defender

It’s no secret that Hawks forward DeMarre Carroll is going to spend most of the series defending LeBron James. At 6-8 and 212 pounds, Carroll has a similar body type to Jimmy Butler and Jae Crowder from the previous two rounds. But, who’s next in line after that?

Carroll is bound to get into foul trouble at some point, and the Hawks will most likely choose between going bigger with Paul Millsap or Mike Scott and going smaller with Kyle Korver or Kent Bazemore. Given James’ prolonged struggles on the perimeter, it would makes sense to use Millsap and the bigger body (or similarly-sized body in this case) to try and slow LeBron in the post. In the lone matchup between these two teams when they were whole in early March, LeBron shot just 5-of-13, scoring 18 points and handing out eight assists while turning it over a season-high nine times. James has turned it over 4.6 times in the playoffs, and the Hawks are third in turnover percentage (14.9%). James has to minimize his mistakes, particularly those from the middle of the floor to the wings, which often go the other way for easy transition hoops.

The second line

When LeBron does get by Carroll on drives and in isolation, how will the second line of Atlanta’s big men hold up? Paul Millsap (6-8, 245) and Al Horford (6-10, 245) are both undersized big men, and they will not provide the same level of resistance right at the rim as Pau Gasol, Joakim Noah, and Taj Gibson did in the Chicago series. However, the Atlanta bigs are much more perimeter-oriented, and they will do a better job helping on pick and rolls, switching, and swiping at ball-handlers early on the drive. When James has to finish with contact, however, it should be slightly easier in this series.

The second big

With those more mobile bigs, how will the Cavaliers respond on their defensive end? Timofey Mozgov played just 25.7 minutes per game in the Chicago series even with the tightened eight-man rotation. I don’t foresee those minutes going up in this series. If anything, they’ll go down. This is the key to defending in the Hawks: Sticking to your man and not over-helping as opposed to swarming pick and rolls and the paint to stop one particular player. Al Horford takes half of his shots from 10 feet and out, and Millsap takes 41% of his shot attempts from there. That will draw Mozgov away from the paint and make him less effective. For that reason, the Cavaliers are going to be better off rolling with their small lineup down the stretch of Kyrie Irving, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith or Matthew Dellavedova, James, and Tristan Thompson.

The Hawks are one of the worst rebounding teams in the league (30th in ORB%, 28th in total rebounding, 22th in DRB%), and it will be on Tristan (16.2 TRB%) and LeBron (13.7% TRB%) to keep it that way when the wine and gold go small.

The second pair of All-Stars

Al Horford and Paul Millsap make the Hawks tick. Of course, there is another pair of All-Stars in Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver that also played a tremendous role in them getting to this point. However, in the postseason, their shooting has struggled. Teague is shooting just under 40% (46% regular season), averaging 15.3 points, 7.4 assists, and 3.0 turnovers. Korver is shooting just 38.5% overall (48.7% regular season) and 35.0% (49.2% regular season) from three for 11.3 points per game (12.1 regular season). The Cavaliers need to take their strategy to staying attached to Mike Dunleavy Jr. from the second round and put that on steroids. In six games, Dunleavy was 10-of-25 from three-point range, and he was unable to provide that consistent third scoring punch for the Bulls.

The Cavs already went through a galvanizing series of trying to defend both Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler in the backcourt, so they should be prepared for this.

The second unit

The Hawks have limited their bench in the playoffs as most teams do, playing only eight bodies in every postseason game. Those three reserves are point guard Dennis Schroder, guard Kent Bazemore, and big man Pero Antic. Those three have averaged about 20 points per game in these playoffs, but Antic is the only one that you can’t leave spotting up on the perimeter. Schroder is lightning quick and must be kept out of the paint. He also frequently closes games in a two-point front with Teague.

Atlanta has used forwards Mike Muscala and Mike Scott at various points as well. With J.R. Smith, Matthew Dellavedova, and James Jones coming off of the bench, the Cavaliers have an offensive firepower scoring advantage here. The Cavaliers are getting 4.8 three point makes per night from their bench trio as opposed to just 4.4 from the starters (read: Irving, James, and Shumpert). All four teams left can shoot the three and shoot it a lot. In the Chicago series, the Cavs had four shooters knocking them down at a 42%+ rate (Smith – 44%, Irving and Dellavedova – 43%, and Jones 42%). If the Cavaliers can keep that up, despite LeBron’s woeful outside shooting, they’re in great shape.

The second time

I don’t want to belittle what the Atlanta Hawks have done, because they’ve been great all season. They’ve done everything they’ve needed to get to this point with homecourt advantage and a very real chance of knocking out the Cavaliers. Their starting five is one tough, cohesive unit that is incredibly difficult to pick apart and focus on one-by-one. They’ve been remarkably healthy with all five starters playing 70 games or more. In comparison, the Cavs can only say that about three players in terms of 70 games played (Thompson, Irving, and Love), and one of those three is done for the postseason.

Even though Atlanta was pushed to six games by both a sub-.500 Brooklyn and a half John Wall-less Washington, they have not faced the type of adversity the Cavaliers have. A prolonged losing streak without their star, roster-flipping trades in January, the injury to Love, the injuries to Irving, and a playoff series against what I believe was clearly the third best team in the East in my mind in the Chicago Bulls. The Hawks may have done the equivalent of biting through their lip, but nobody left on this half of the bracket knows the taste of their own blood in their mouth like the Cavaliers. They’re the ones who were staring down the barrel of a “This is it: now or never” type of moment like Game 4. Sure, Atlanta needed an Al Horford game-winner in Game 5 to take control of the series, but it’s not the same magnitude as a Game 4 road win that could have buried the Cavaliers at 3-1.

Bottom line

The Cavaliers have the best player in this series, they’re gelling at the right time, and if Kyrie Irving can give them three or four star performances in the series, it should make all the difference and help the Cavaliers reach the NBA Finals for the second time in franchise history.

Prediction

Cavaliers in six.