The guy who’s key to Cavaliers’ hopes (other than LeBron)
CLEVELAND — So much is always made about the supporting cast for LeBron James. On their best days, they usually are described as good citizens who rarely violate international trade agreements.
So when they don’t step up and contribute, they are seen as the reason the Cavs and the state of Ohio will plunge into eternal darkness.
Which brings us to Kyle Korver, who has been an invisible man in the early stages of the NBA Finals.
Throughout the regular season, Korver averaged 9.2 points for the Cavs as their primary deep threat — one of the league’s all-time great deep threats — off the bench. The numbers rose in the playoffs.
In the first round against Indiana, Korver started six of seven games, averaged 8.3 points and shot 16-of-40 (.400) on 3s. He started all four games in the second round sweep of Toronto, averaged 14.5 points and shot 14-of-25 (.560) on 3s. Against Boston in the East Finals, when Tristan Thompson regained starting status, Korver started once but averaged 8.6 points and shot 14-of-33 (.424) on 3s.
Then came the Finals. In the first two games off the bench against the Warriors, Korver has gotten just six shots, made one in 33 minutes. The Warriors, shall we say, have made it their mission to make Korver’s world a crowded place.
“He’s always a point of emphasis. He’s a huge factor for them,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said as his gang sought to grab a strangulating 3-0 Finals lead Wednesday.
“So we’re trying to be as diligent as possible with Kyle coming off screens. We know how important he is to their team, so we’ll try to keep doing it, but all it takes is a couple mistakes defensively and he gets free and he can get rolling, so we’ve got to be sharp.”
And the Cavs aimed, among other things, to get Korver rolling. But against the always active, switching Warriors defense, that’s easier said than done.
“It’s hard because they switch out on everything,” said Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue, admitting the difficulty in finding good shots for Korver. “So all the actions you run for Kyle, they just switch out to deny and take him away. When they are helping on LeBron’s penetration, the one guy they’re staying at home on is Kyle.”
Good guy to pick, given his accuracy from deep — overall, he was .449 (44-of-98) in the first three rounds on 3-pointers.
“They’re not leaving his body. With him on the floor, they have to pay attention to him, know where he’s at at all times. He gives us spacing offensively, but they’re not leaving him,” Lue said.
“We try to run a lot of actions for him, but they’re just switching out and taking it away. We have to do a better job of playing faster in transition, getting some shots and probably picking up early on in transition instead of waiting until he gets too deep to the corner.”
