LeBron James And Kyrie Irving Dominated The Warriors, And Now The Cavs Need An Encore

This article is part of VICE Sports' 2016 NBA Playoffs coverage.

At the most basic level, Game 5 of the NBA Finals was all about remarkable tandem offensive outbursts from Cleveland's Kyrie Irving and LeBron James. The herculean drives to the rim, the impossible pull-up three-pointers that went in over and over again, the uncanny wizardry with the basketball. It all left the Golden State Warriors shaking their heads and wondering what hit them.

But, below the surface, there was a concerted effort by the Cavaliers to get Irving shots in the specific situations where he's at his best, as well as what appeared to be a conscious decision by James to let it fly. Heading into Thursday night's Game 6 in Cleveland, two questions are paramount: can the Cavs do it again? And, with Draymond Green returning from a one-game suspension, can the Warriors prevent a repeat?

Let's take a closer look:

Before Game 5, James was just 4-of-12 on mid-range jump shots during the Finals, and 5-of-15 on three-pointers above the break. The low number of attempts is just as important as the low percentage.

Throughout the series, the Warriors have been conceding open pull-up jumpers to James by going under every screen in which he's the ball-handler. They know pull-ups are James' least efficient shots, and James knows it, too. That has been a problem for Cleveland. Often, the willingness to shoot is nearly as valuable as the ability to make shots; by passing on these shots, James has been playing right into Golden State's hands, and allowing the Warriors to shrink the amount of space they have to defend.

Like a boxer who sets up a deadly right hook with a series of left jabs, James can set up every other part of his game by taking—and making—jumpers. In Game 5, James did both, making Golden State pay for sagging off by shooting 4-of-10 from mid-range and 4-of-8 from behind the arc for 20 points on 18 shooting possessions, or 1.11 points per shot.

Equally as important were James' decisions about when to shoot. There is a huge difference between being willing to take jumpers and settling for jumpers. In Game 5, James didn't settle. He clearly preferred to drive to the rim when the opportunity presented itself, and generally shot jumpers when that was the right read—either because defenders sagged far enough off of him to allow an easy, in-rhythm jump shot, or because defenders went under a ball screen, allowing James to reach one of his hot spots and shoot uncontested.

Unlike James, Irving has never been unwilling to shoot. To the contrary, his biggest issue is that he doesn't always have a feel for good shots versus bad ones. So even though he's excellent at making tough shots, the Cavs are better off putting him in positions where he doesn't have to.

That's what Cleveland did in Game 5. Of Irving's 17 made field goals, 16 fit into four categories: catch-and-shoot, pick-and-roll, isolation, and "forced" shots; the one outlier was a breakaway layup. So:

Catch-And-Shoot

Irving's first shot of the game was a wide-open catch-and-shoot three-pointer from above the break, the perfect way for a high-volume scorer to get comfortable. Irving also hit back-to-back catch-and-shoot triples in transition in the third quarter, shots that opened up the game and almost certainly helped elevate his confidence. That confidence was apparent during the offensive show Irving put on in the fourth.

High pick-and-roll

In the regular season, Irving was the most efficient pick-and-roll player among all NBA players with at least 100 attempts, per Synergy—and in the playoffs, he has been just as good, averaging 0.99 points per possession, tops among players with at least 50 attempts.

In the Finals, so much of Irving's success on those plays hinges on the floor balance of his Cavs teammates, as well as the positioning of the Warriors. Irving's best scenario is when his center screens the ball above the arc, forcing Golden State's center to come out to the three-point line. Andrew Bogut, Anderson Varejao, Festus Ezeli, and especially Maurice Speights are barbecue fodder when they attempt to contain Irving 20 feet from the basket—and if they sag too far off, they surrender in-rhythm jumpers.

Cleveland's off-ball players play a huge part in creating these one-on-one matchups for Irving. Ideally, the Cavs manage to station a shooter in each corner and James on the opposite wing, or move all three off-ball players onto the opposite side of the floor. This is especially true whenever Cleveland is able to draw Andre Iguodala far away from Irving. Notice in this clip how every one of Irving's baskets comes with Iguodala either too far away to provide help at the rim, or guarding a knock-down shooter on the strong side:

Isolation

Like pick-and-rolls, not all isolations are created equal. Throughout this series, they've been feast or famine for the Cavs, largely because Cleveland has struggled to create ideal circumstances. Irving's best isolation scenario is identical to that of a pick-and-roll—in fact, almost all of his isolations begin as a pick-and-roll to force a switch, with Irving pulling the ball back to set up a move instead of immediately attacking off the screen.

Isolation shots aren't nearly as sustainable as catch-and-shoot jumpers or shots out of the pick-and-roll, but Irving is very capable of feasting on them in any given game, and this is true even against tall, rangy defenders like Klay Thompson.

In Game 5, Irving shot well over 50 percent on isolations, many of them coming in the fourth quarter after he had established a rhythm and the Cavs were playing with a lead. It probably would be fool's gold for Cleveland to count on a repeat performance in Game 6, but an Irving isolation isn't a bad fallback on a possession when their initial half-court action doesn't create a better look.

Forced shots

Irving also took a few bad shots in Game 5—but as you may have noticed, even a few of those went in. These are neither advisable nor sustainable, but on the other hand, they're also the kind of shots that have a way of falling when an elite NBA scorer is able to get comfortable on the court.

As great as Irving and James were in Game 5, the question hanging over every made shot was whether that shot would be open if Draymond was playing. As hard as it is to draw Iguodala away from the ball, it's twice as difficult to get both him and Green out of help position. So much of Cleveland's Game 5 success was predicated on Bogut and Golden State's other bigs being unable to contain Irving. But Green can do that—he can basically contain anybody, in fact, and when he's not guarding the ball-handler, he'll wait in the paint as a second line of defense.

The Warriors missed Green's offense, too. On the first play of Game 5, Golden State ran a pick-and-roll for Curry. As the Cavs doubled the ball, Bogut was left to run the 4-on-3 action that Green has mastered. That play and several others just like it ended in turnovers, missed shots, or just plain ugly basketball. It's not surprising that Curry struggled—it's a lot harder to deal with double teams when you can't drop the ball off to an elite, rolling playmaker.

Irving's defense is still comically bad. This is especially true in pick-and-roll situations, which is a bit ironic, given how well Irving scores out of the same play. It's always amazing when a player has such great feel for something on one end of the court, and absolutely no feel for that same thing on the other end:

The Cavs ran a lot of great sets in Game 5 but none were as gorgeously drawn-up and executed as the opening set of the second quarter. This set, which is commonly known as "Ram Stagger," is a great double ball screen in which the first screener rolls hard to the rim and the second screener pops out to the three-point line. Bonus points to Cleveland coach Ty Lue for running this action at the perfect target. Mo Speights is an awful pick-and-roll defender, and he was also the only "rim protector" on the court for the Warriors. It did not end well.

Speaking of Speights, don't look for him to play heavy minutes in Game 6. With Green available, there's no reason to risk having him on the court, especially when James looks to exploit him on every possession. Watch below as Speights tries to switch Shaun Livingston onto the screener—only to have James ignore the screen and go right at Speights' man in the corner for a dribble handoff. Speights gets lost, of course, and Richard Jefferson gets an easy layup:

One action I'd love to see the Cavs use tonight? Have Tristan Thompson set a drag screen in transition when his man sinks deep into the paint. In this clip, look at how far under the basket Ezeli gets. Now imagine Tristan Thompson getting a wider angle and hitting Klay Thompson with a screen. Irving would've been wide open for an easy shot, able to attack an already out of position Ezeli.

Given that Cleveland is still down 3-2 in the series, the pressure will be on in Game 6. That said, the Cavs were able to find offensive actions that worked in Game 5. Better still, they were able to execute them, as opposed to reverting to the sort of stagnant isolation play that has been their default bad habit. If they can play with the same level of focus and resolve—and amp up their defensive effort to contain Green—the Cavs have a real shot to win at home and force a Game 7. Do that, and… well, it still won't be easy. But the pressure will shift back to Golden State for what promises to be an epic Game 7.

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