Andre Iguodala has been a major focus of attention this season, not for what he does, but for what he doesn’t do, which is start for the Golden State Warriors. Iguodala is an 11-year NBA veteran, a former All-Star, still at the peak of his game, and yet he does not start for his team.
As the Warriors look ahead to Game 2 of their NBA Finals series with Cleveland, they are focused on Iguodala’s task on the court, which was and is to finish. He finished the first and third quarters with last-second baskets, finished Cleveland’s upset chances with tough defense on LeBron James, and, oh yeah, he finished the game.
Here in the Bay Area, the “Iguodala Doesn’t Start” meme has pretty much played itself out. Once you see the team play, you realize that he’s a integral part of everything the Warriors do, and you also see that he finishes a lot of games. It’s very different from the “David Lee Doesn’t Start” meme, when Lee often draws a “DNP-Coach’s decision” as he got in Game 1. For the national and international media, however, it’s still something to talk about.
It’s possible that the Warriors could have won the game Thursday night without Andre Iguodala, but I would have hated to see them try. In the first quarter he stopped an 10-0 Cleveland run with a fadeaway jumper over Timofey Mozgov. At the end of the quarter, with the Warriors trailing by 12, he blew past James like he wasn’t even there and dunked with .05 left in the quarter.
In the third quarter, Iguodala forced James to dribble the ball of his foot with five seconds left, just enough time for him to drive the length of the court for another dunk.
In the fourth quarter, he really showed his versatility and his value. He hit a 3-pointer with 10:55 to go to give the Warriors a 76-75 lead. The Cavaliers came down and Kyrie Irving missed a 3-pointer. Iguodala got the rebound and brought it down the floor before whipping a pass to a wide open Shaun Livingston under the basket for a layup. The next possession for Cleveland found Iguodala guarding J.R. Smith, who tried a 3-point shot. Igyodala blocked it.
Three-pointer, rebound, assist, block. Pretty much the whole package.
Steve Kerry was asked about Iguodala, and he said, “Andre is one of the smartest defensive players I’ve ever been around. He understands what LeBron wants to do. and he knows how to work the angles to make those shots more difficult.” The proof is in this stat: While being guarded by Iguodala, LeBron James was 5-for-15 and scored 12 points; against everyone else he was 11-21 for 26 points.
I don’t think Kerr will put Iguodala on James full-time. Cavs GM David Griffin said on our podcast that LeBron is “like a video game on Learning Mode.” If he gets enough reps against Iguodala he will figure out how to solve him. I do believe that, at least in Game 2, Iguodala will draw that assignment in the fourth quarter, and once again the question of who starts for the Warriors will become moot.
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Notes from Game 1 of the NBA Finals
Having just completed a 3-part retrospective on the 1975 Warriors , I couldn’t help noticing a couple of stark similarities between that team and last night’s version.
1) In three of the four games of the 1975 NBA Finals, the Warriors trailed by at least nine points at the end of the first quarter. Last night they trailed by ten after Iguodala’s dunk with a half-second remaining.
2) Here’s a game-by-game breakdown of the bench scoring margin in the 1975 Finals:
Game 1: GSW 44, Bullets 15
Game 2: GSW 29, Bullets 9
Game 3: GSW 42, Bullets 29
Game 4: GSW 32, Bullets 8
For the first game of the 2015 Finals?
Warriors 34, Cavaliers 9
I’m not sure there’s been a team in the intervening 39 years that used as many players playing meaningful minutes as either of these Warriors teams. I find it so ironic that their rotations are so similar.
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I wonder if the Warriors are concerned at all about Draymond Green. Since Game 1 of the Memphis series, a span of 11 games, he’s 9-for-50 from 3-point range (18%). Game 2 was the one in which he drew two quick fouls and a technical, and never found a rhythm after that.
That’s actually not the thing I would be worried about, though — this is: for the first nine of those eleven games, Green was shooting almost 60% on 2-point field goals (36-of-61). In the last two games, he’s shooting 35% (7-for-20).
If he’s not hitting threes, he can just stop shooting them, but now it seems to be seeping into the rest of his offensive game. In the first five games of the playoffs, he was a total of +93 (18.3 average). Since then, he’s +79 (7.22 avg). Take out the +36 from Game 3 of the Houston series, and he’s averaging +4.3 over the ten games. Something to keep an eye on, to be sure.
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Kyrie Irving’s status makes it almost impossible to analyze the series at this point. He played so well before he went down in the overtime, and if he can approach that level again, things could be very interesting. The Cavs have played and won playoff series without him, although not against teams as good and deep as the Warriors. Cleveland’s first “must-win” game is Tuesday, so he has some time to get better. I’d be very surprised to see him on the floor Sunday night.
