Game 5 Preview: Running on Empty…

It’s almost time for the Cavs first Game 5 of the NBA Finals in franchise history!

But don’t expect LeBron James, David Blatt and the rest of Team Intravenous Fluids to be content resting at this cozy mountain base camp when there’s still the rest of the mountain to climb. Here’s some things to look for going into this critical game against the Warriors safely back in their Golden State:

1.) Much of the narrative following the Warriors 103-82 Game 4 victory over the Cavaliers was that the Warriors had finally “figured out” the Cavs defense. How much that lopsided win had to do with the Warriors cracking the schemes that had been frustrating them through the first three games and how much it was the Cavs exhaustion that prevented the Cleveland players from being as effective against Golden State remains to be seen. The Warriors made some adjustments — particularly the insertion of Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup, relegating Andrew Bogut to just a foul-plagued cameo — that gave the Cavs problems, and the team was still only down by one point with under a minute to go in the third… despite their collective legs joining Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in street clothes. Eventually, the Warriors hit some shots, while the Cavs couldn’t get anything outside the paint to drop — and that’s a narrative that could describe a million different basketball losses more than it sounds like one about a clearly superior team jumpstarting a Midas touch that had mysteriously gone missing for the previous two games. We’ll see.

But, yes, if the Cavs haven’t recovered enough to rediscover some of their spring, tonight’s game could turn out just as ugly as Thursday’s loss… if not more so.

2.) Cavs fans — along with Cavs coaches and players — have been waiting for J.R. Smith to have a crazy, hot shooting, breakout game at some point in this Finals. Those are the types of games basketball fans have come to expect from Smith. After watching another uninspiring shooting performance by Smith on Thursday night (just four points on 2-12 shooting, including 0-8 from three) I wondered if Golden State had taken away a big part of what makes Smith such a dangerous and conscious-free shooter: his ability to fail.

Sometimes Smith is on target from jump. But often, it seems like he needs to get his misses in before he starts draining shots from deep with an ease and frequency that rivals his oppositions backcourt during these Finals. Think back to Game 3 in Chicago. The Cavs were down double digits late in the third quarter. What won the game for them — as much as LeBron James’s buzzer beating three — was Smith getting hot at just the right time and dropping in a handful of threes in the fourth quarter. Smith hadn’t shot well that whole game, but he was able to shoot himself right and come up big when the Cavs needed it most.

It almost seems that just the threat of Golden State’s offense making a run has put extra pressure on every shot the Cavaliers take. The scores have been tight and the Warriors have shown the ability to make deficits disappear in a hurry. Especially with Irving and Love out, the Cavs limited offensive options make Smith gunslinging to an 0-5 start from beyond the arc and still maintaining the confidence he needs to get white hot through some key stretch of the game a little more difficult. It doesn’t make it impossible. Smith has confidence to spare. But I wouldn’t be shocked if this thought is creeping in to the heads of some of the Cavs shooters and tightening them up just a bit.

3.) On the other side, the Cavs strategy of leaving Iguodala and Draymond Green wide open in order to better hound Curry and Klay Thompson seems, at least, to have had a similar effect on Green. The Cavs should be fine letting him continue to shoot, as he seems much more taken out of his comfort zone taking the wide-open shots the Cavs are giving him than he does with a defender up in his face.

Iguodala, however, seems to be adjusting to becoming more of a threat from three. Throughout his career, Iguodala hasn’t shot the long ball horribly… he just hasn’t shot it much. He’s a career 33.3% three point shooter — 34.9% this season — but he was attempting just a shade under three shots a game from beyond the arc. This series started with similar lines. Through the first two games, Iguodala went 2-3 and 1-2 from deep before attempting an uncharacteristic eight (hitting two) in a losing effort in Game 3 and then really hurting the Cavs by going 4-9 from three in Game 4. It’s unlikely he will shoot that well again from outside but, unlike Green, who was 1-3 from three point range in Game 4, Iguodala doesn’t seem rattled by being asked to alter his game. I’m not sure the Cavs can afford to ignore him any more when he spots up beyond the arc, which could put additional pressure on an already stretched-thin defense.

4.) One of the few bright spots during Thursday’s loss was that, as the ABC broadcast team talked about Matthew Dellavedova’s 20 point Game 3 making him just the third undrafted player to score 20 or more points in a Finals game, he was joined by teammate Timofey Mozgov, who scored a team high 28 points. Gary Neal and John Starks are the other two players on that list.

Two players does not an exhaustive history make, but here’s the difference between Neal and Starks: Starks scored 20 or more points four times for the New York Knicks during the 1994 Finals, while Neal only average 6.25 points in the four games following a 24-point Game 3 in the 2013 Finals for the Spurs.

The Cavaliers really need either Dellavedova or Mozgov (or, I’m sure, they’d take both) to channel their inner Starks for the rest of this Finals run.