The Cavs Can Exploit The Warriors Without Draymond Green, But How Much Will It Really Matter?

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

Following his fourth ambiguously inadvertent groin-strike in three weeks, Draymond Green finally received his fourth flagrant foul point of the NBA Playoffs, which means he's suspended for Monday night's Game 5 of the Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.

In a series largely controlled by the Warriors, this has huge implications.

Outside of Steph Curry, Green is probably the Warriors' most irreplaceable player. For a majority of this series—and really, for two entire NBA seasons—Golden State lineups with Green playing center have dominated the league, and in this NBA Finals and the last one, they dominated the Cavaliers.

Over four games in the Finals, Golden State is outscoring Cleveland by over 30 points per 100 possessions with Green at center, per NBAwowy.com. And while that number reflects the story, it doesn't capture all of the details.

Green is the glue that holds almost every Warriors lineup together. When he plays alongside a traditional center like Andrew Bogut, he becomes a lockdown perimeter defender, playing passing lanes and stonewalling drives to the basket. But when Green plays center himself, he forms a one-man second line of defense—quick enough and long enough to double LeBron James at the basket and still recover onto the perimeter if James kicks the ball out to shooters.

No other Golden State player can do what Green does defensively. His suspension is a major gift for Cleveland, an opportunity for the Cavs to fight back into the series by doing what they do best—scoring points. The question is, can Cleveland execute its offense well enough to take advantage for Green's absence?

In Game 3, the Cavs appeared to have solved the Warriors' traditionally sized lineups—the ones with Bogut at center—outscoring Golden State by 21 points in the 12 minutes that he was on the court. Cleveland exploited Bogut by drawing him out of the paint—where he's most effective as a rim protector—and forcing him to cover high pick-and-rolls featuring James and Kyrie Irving as the primary ball-handlers.

This bodes well for the Cavs' chances in Game 5—particularly given that the Warriors will probably have to abandon their small lineups entirely, and instead play either Festus Ezeli or Anderson Varejao at center when Bogut rests. Both players have struggled to contain Cleveland for most of the series, and will probably be exposed the longer that they are on the court.

Moreover, the oft-maligned Kevin Love should have his best game of the series. None of Golden State's centers can guard him on the perimeter, and he has the size and skill to post up any of their smaller players not named Draymond.

Indeed, this should be a perfect storm for Cleveland. The Cavs can attack Bogut as they did in Games 3 and 4 by putting him back in those 1-5 high pick-and-rolls, and they can attack every other Warriors lineup by either spreading the court for James or posting up Love.

And yet, Cleveland has given its fans absolutely no reason to think that they will apply—and more importantly, consistently execute—a winning game plan.

For all the good that the Cavs are capable of on the offensive end—ask Atlanta, they can be great—they seem incapable breaking some very bad habits. Whenever their offense stalls for more than a possession or two, you can count on Cleveland to fall back into stagnant isolations of some sort.

Even when the Cavs have the right idea, they too often fail to execute. Consider Game 4. Golden State coach Steve Kerr elected to keep Bogut in his starting lineup, it became imperative for Cleveland to go at the mismatched center. The Cavs did just that, and a wide-open Irving jumper off of a very simple 1-5 high screen, pushing their lead to a game-high eight points.

It appeared that the Cavs were going to hammer this action home until the Warriors took Bogut out—but on the very next possession, Irving inexplicably refused the screen and opted instead to attack Klay Thompson directly, turning the ball over as he dribbled into a double team.

Cleveland ran the same 1-5 high pick-and-roll on the next possession, once again taking Bogut out of his comfort zone and stretching the Warriors' defense beyond its comfort zone. The play "worked" in that it ended with a fairly decent shot in the paint, but Irving overshot the rim by about a foot.

The Cavs ran this action one final time a minute later on its next half-court possession, only this time Bogut stepped all the way out to the three-point line trying to contain the ball-handler. Irving dropped the ball off to a wide-open Tristan Thompson, who collapsed the defense—but rather than pass to Richard Jefferson, who was wide open in the corner, Thompson forced the shot at the rim and was blocked emphatically by Bogut.

It's not hard to imagine a scenario in which Cleveland made the right offensive reads during that stretch, and/or finished the handful of shots that their offense created at the rim. The plays were right there; they were some of the best looks the Cavs saw all game.

Meanwhile, Cleveland's defensive focus was lacking. This isn't surprising, given that their defensive effort seems to be directly linked to their offensive production. While the Cavs were missing reads and shots, Golden State was busy knocking down soul-crushing three-pointers on the other end of the floor—a trio of triples that were wide-open, thanks to three excellent (or completely illegal, depending on your perspective) screens.

During this crucial five-minute stretch, Cleveland left seven easy points on the board, and gave up nine points on three wide-open shots to the two best sharpshooters in basketball. Rather than go up by 15, the Cavs saw their lead shrink to a point. From that point forward, they reverted to—you guessed it—stagnant isolations on offense.

The Cavs are talented enough offensively to make these possessions work some of the time, but because they aren't nearly as talented on defense, and because they're playing the Warriors, some of the time won't cut it. Through four games of the Finals, it has been clear that one team came out of their conference playoffs battle-tested and refined through adversity, and that the other has not. That one team manages to stick to opponents through four or five rotations on defense, contesting shots inside and out, while the other team routinely loses players after one screen or cut. That one team sticks to its offensive identity through ebbs and flows in the score, while the other falls back to its worst habits at the first sign of trouble.

With Green out for Game 5, the Cavs have a good chance to steal a game. But to steal the series, they'll have to be great on offense. And that means a level of consistent execution that Cleveland has yet to show.

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