The Wood Shop: Best Lineups/How I learned to Love Liggins and Williams

It’s playoff time, and the fact that the Cavs were 10-14 since March first is behind us. They stumbled this season. Defensively, they finished 21st in the whole league. Even the one-sided Rockets defended better than them.

However, there was a high point this year. LeBron James, in his 14th season, finished the year averaging highs in assists(with 8.7 per game)and rebounds (with 8.6 per game). He also hit 36.3% of his 3s, which is the highest he ever has drained in a Cleveland uniform. The King is still the King, maybe even a robotic and ageless one, and until proven otherwise I’m going to keep believing he can turn on the “switch” I hear so much about.

This season, more than anything else though, has just been confusing. Tyronn Lue seems to favor playing groups that feature all offensive players. The team’s defensive rating and the blown leads every fan knows all too much about, specifically a 26 point one to the Hawks’s second unit just this week, support that observation.

What’s really sad is that this team just doesn’t terrify with offense first groups. They win plenty, but they aren’t generating “best in the league” talk. There’s a common element in the Cav’s best units, a defensive minded man or advantage.

The unit of DeAndre Liggins, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, and Kyrie Irving had the second best net rating in the league of any group that played over 100 mins. Their net rating of +28.3 is second to only the Warriors’ Big Four and JaVale McGee‘s rating.

That unit is the Cavs starters minus J.R. Smith. Liggins isn’t the sole reason that group succeeded, but there’s something to be said for a player who will guard the ball baseline-to-baseline and doesn’t care if he ever gets to shoot it. Replacing Smith with Liggins in the starting lineup resulted in the net rating going up by 22.7 points. I’m sure many of those points are directly because teams couldn’t get instant transition points.

Let’s look at the Cavs jumbo group. When Lue trotted out James, Kyle Korver, Richard Jefferson, Derrick Williams and Channing Frye, the league was trampled. Up until February 25th, those five played 34 mind blowing minutes with a net rating of +44.1. They used their massive size to switch everything and mess with passing lanes against opposing second units. Offensively, LeBron drove and dished to one of the four above average shooters on the perimeter. Since the end of February, that group has played just five more minutes. They currently have a +35 net rating.

While none of those jumbo players is necessarily a plus defender, they are all lengthy enough to stop initial penetration and mobile enough to help each other out. That lineup is the best Cleveland unit of all that have played above 30 minutes.

It’s easy to look at these two groups, and say that they’re simply anomalies. The first probably isn’t given how many minutes it played, but the jumbo group may be.

However, the two-man data certainly supports the idea that Cleveland’s best groups feature a defense first/hustler guy.

Four of the top five duos for net rating that have played over one hundred minutes together feature Liggins or Derrick Williams. Seven of the top ten feature one of them.
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This lineup data is scary when you think about how Lue did rotations this year. First off, Liggins isn’t even on the team anymore and he was barely playing as soon as the Cavs picked up Deron Williams. Secondly, Derrick has played zero meaningful minutes since late February.

And, It’s not like Lue had some other lineup or secondary players that were blowing teams out of the water. That gets to my final thought before the playoffs start.

In the coming weeks, Lue needs to experiment purposely with who is on the floor and not just use a lineup because “why not?” There’s lots to consider with a group.

He needs to ask who can score. Who needs the ball? Who can defend? Who enjoys pressure? Who has an electric high five and who works better fist pumping on the bench?

Thankfully, Lue isn’t alone in all this. I’m here to at least offer a suggestion. Closing games out has been an issue for Cleveland. Like most teams, they usually have their starters in or some slight variation of their starters in to end the night. Well, Lue needs to abandon that completely.

LeBron James is the Cavs. He should also be the offense. Kyrie Irving could also be the offense. Unfortunately for fans, isolation ball works for the Cavs, so they should embrace it full force. Kyrie is in the 94th percentile for isolation plays and LeBron is in the 76th. You can give either of them the ball and tell them to just score, and there’s a good chance they will get a bucket half the time.

That’s enough offense when the rest of the lineup is focused solely on stopping another team. Essentially, the other guys on the floor need to hold the opposition to 45% shooting, run through concrete enforced picks, and hit an occasional open shot.  Can Lue slap together a group that does that?  Can he yell at a group until they do that? Probably.

And, when a team has a guy that can stop Kyrie or The King from scoring solo, Lue can play both of them and find three other guys to stop the opponent. This isn’t a viable style all game, but if a game is tight, this is what Lue needs to do.

It’s not pretty ball, but Cleveland stretched the 2015 Finals to six games doing this. They won the 2016 Finals this way; the entire team decided they were going to defend their butts off two minutes at a time when it mattered and then Irving hit “the shot” to win it. Let’s see what Lue does Saturday.

All stats from NBA.com.