The conference finals are upon us, with the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets starting the festivities on Tuesday. The Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers follow them on Wednesday. Here’s a look at many reasons to be excited and intrigued about what’s to come.
1. The Real MVP?
It feels like this year belongs to Stephen Curry, and the Golden State guard won the Most Valuable Player award in a landslide. Houston’s James Harden, though, was a worthy runner-up. CBSSports.com’s Matt Moore broke down the race in great detail, and when you really look at it, the vote probably should have been closer than it was.
The argle-bargle between Warriors and Rockets fans will be exhausting if one team clearly outplays the other, and we know that the two superstars won’t spend much time guarding each other. Still, it’s fun that the two most impactful players in the league this season will meet with a trip to the Finals on the line. Especially given that Harden seemed a little salty about the whole thing.
2. Can LeBron be stopped?
It’s ridiculously reductive to look at the Eastern Conference Finals as LeBron James vs. the Hawks, or LeBron James vs. team basketball, or LeBron James vs. everything good and sacred. If the Cavaliers are going to win, they’ll need contributions from a variety of players. It’ll help, however, if James is able to play like the Basketball God he is.
In the Chicago Bulls series, James looked like alarmingly mortal a lot of the time and shot 40 percent from the field. In Game 5, though, when Cleveland needed him to be transcendent, he was. That 38-point, 12-rebound, six-assist, three-block, three-steal performance turned everything around. Unlike Atlanta, the Cavs don’t have four All-Stars. But they do have the best player on the planet, and it’s unclear if the Hawks' solid team D will be able to contain him.
3. The brilliance of Golden State’s defense
We’ll remember Curry’s 62-footer and the Warriors raining 3s against the Memphis Grizzlies, but the real reason they advanced is their defense. Golden State allowed the fewest points per possession of any team in the regular season, and they put the clamps on Memphis in Game 4 and beyond. It’s going to be a big adjustment going up against Houston, though.
While the Grizzlies’ offense revolves around Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph’s inside presence, the Rockets made and attempted more 3-pointers than anybody else in the regular season. The Warriors dared Memphis to beat them from the outside, but that obviously won’t be the strategy here. With a spaced floor, pick-and-rolls involving Harden and Dwight Howard aren’t easy for anybody to cover, even Golden State.
4. Kyrie’s health
Let’s give Cleveland guard Kyrie Irving some sort of imaginary award for the way he’s played through pain. It’s been awfully impressive how he’s dealt with his sprained foot and the tendinitis in his knee, especially in that same Game 5 where James became a superhero., Irving was able to sit out most of the series clincher, and he’s had some time to rest since. This is great news for the Cavs, but there’s still no guarantee he’ll get back to anything close to 100 percent.
Irving’s offense is needed, sure, but the bigger worry here is how he’s able to move defensively. The Hawks will surely look to make him guard pick-and-rolls and chase his man around screens. We know he’ll do his best, but we don’t know if that’ll be good enough.
5. Dominant Dwight
Howard hasn’t advanced this far in the postseason since 2010, when his Orlando Magic lost to the Boston Celtics in six games. He finished fourth in MVP voting that year and second the next, and he's finally looking similar to that guy again. He’s not getting as many post-ups as he’d probably like, but he’s healthy and he's been an elite defender and rebounder.
The Rockets need peak Howard if they’re going to defeat this Warriors juggernaut. Games will change if he can get Andrew Bogut into foul trouble. His ability to move his feet, protect the paint and play defend pick-and-rolls without fouling will go a long way toward slowing down Golden State’s attack.
6. Missing Korver
I miss Kyle Korver’s scoring explosions. When Atlanta was rolling, it was common for him to hit a few threes in succession. It meant the Hawks were never out of games when trailing, and they were capable of delivering demoralizing knockout punches. Lately, though, this hasn’t been happening.
Korver averaged just seven points per game on 31.3 percent shooting from the field and 28.6 percent from 3-point range against the Washington Wizards. It’s not that he didn’t affect games — Washington still guarded him as if he was making 70 percent of his shots, and Korver played terrific defense — but Atlanta struggled to find open looks for him with Bradley Beal chasing him around. Can the Cavs make him keep missing?
7. Iguodala’s time to shine
Andre Iguodala averaged 27.6 minutes per game in the first round against the New Orleans Pelicans and 27.3 per game against the Grizzlies, just slightly up from his 26.9 minutes per game in the regular season. This might be the time to bring that number above 30.
The Warriors have many capable wing defenders, but Iguodala is the best of them. It makes sense to have him guard Harden as much as possible without throwing the other guys out of rhythm, and it’ll be easier to keep him out there if he keeps shooting as well as he did in the second round. While he helped his team by graciously accepting a bench role this season, this particular challenge gives him a chance to be the difference-maker.
8. Who’s deeper, Atlanta or Cleveland?
This question would have seemed insane in January, but so much has changed since then. The Hawks, who were praised endlessly for their depth earlier in the season, have found themselves searching for any kind of production off the bench. Dennis Schröder’s wild playmaking has produced both awful and awesome results, and Mike Muscala has had his moments, but Kent Bazemore and Pero Antic have hurt them offensively. On the other hand, Atlanta did have that crazy, reserve-led comeback in the fourth quarter of Game 3.
After Kevin Love’s injury, the Cavs’ depth came into question. Some even compared this roster to the ones James carried before he left for the Miami Heat. Cleveland got past the Bulls, though, largely because of the work of Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith, Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert. Neither team here wants to go deep into its bench, but the series might be about which one can get more out of its role players.
9. One man’s trash …
Josh Smith and Corey Brewer not only led the Rockets’ insane fourth-quarter run in Game 6 against the Los Angeles Clippers, they were instrumental in the team fighting back from the 3-1 series deficit. The two of them could hardly buy a bucket in the first four games, but combined to shoot 53.6 percent from the field and 47.6 percent from deep in the final three.
Houston picked up Smith when the Detroit Pistons waived him just before Christmas, and it acquired Brewer in a salary dump about a week before that. The fact they’ve raised the team’s ceiling is a great story, but it’s no secret that these two can be erratic. The Rockets have to hope they keep making shots.
10. Can the Hawks and Cavs redeem the East?
Let’s be honest: the Eastern Conference playoffs have been disappointing. The Washington Wizards were the only team that exceeded expectations, and they’re gone. Cleveland-Atlanta is the matchup we've wanted for months, but neither team has been particularly inspiring in the postseason. They’ve been involved in many close games, but not a lot of aesthetically pleasing ones.
The good news is that we know the Cavs and Hawks are capable of more. We can still picture them playing like legitimate title contenders. Here’s hoping they get back to that and the East ends up as interesting as the West, if not more.
