How the Celtics can (maybe) stop LeBron James
Three keys to defending the four-time NBA MVP.
COMMENTARY
When the Cavaliers begin play with the Celtics on Wednesday night in Boston, the home team will be an underdog. Despite Boston’s No. 1 seed, that is a justifiable position. The Cavs are the defending NBA champions, and they have the best player on the planet in LeBron James. James has also made a habit of haunting the Celtics. Throughout his illustrious career, he’s averaged more points per game (29.6) against the Celtics than any other team. It will take a ferocious effort from Boston to contain James.
Let’s walk through a blueprint for doing so:
Three-Man Rotation
The Celtics have three players who are well suited to guarding James in Jae Crowder, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart. All three have the necessary physicality and quickness to stay with James … in short bursts. What makes James so great is that he is able to bring intensity the entire time he is on the court. He rarely coasts through plays, and he always has the ball in his hands — during the regular season, he averaged 88.7 touches per game, third in the NBA and first in the East. As such, it takes a full effort to stop him defensively. The way to combat this is to not let any one player take the assignment. Think hockey lines instead of normal NBA player usage. Each player should get three-four minutes on James duty before rotating out. This will keep all three players fresh.
Crowder and Brown are especially suited to the task. In the regular season, the C’s and Cavs met four times. During those four games, six members of the Celtics played at least 80 minutes. Here’s how they stacked up in terms of Plus/Minus:
Plus/Minus, in case you’re not familiar with it, is simply the difference in scoring margin while the player in question was on the court. And in this context, it’s not meant to besmirch the players at the bottom of the list. It’s simply to highlight that Brown and Crowder did very well against the Cavs this season. They were the only ones who were able to not see the C’s outscored when they were on the floor. So, the more of them we see in this series, the better.
Beyond their defensive skills, asking Brown, Crowder and Smart to focus on stopping James could work well because the team has not been relying on any of the three for scoring this postseason. By eFG%, they have been the team’s three worst shooters this postseason, and Al Horford has passed Crowder as the team’s third-highest scorer behind Isaiah Thomas and Avery Bradley.
(Deviating slightly, I would keep Avery Bradley and Terry Rozier exclusively on Kyrie Irving, leaving Isaiah Thomas to cover J.R. Smith/Iman Shumpert.)
Keep Him Out of the Middle of the Floor
Now that we’ve established who should be guarding James, let’s look at where James is most effective as a shooter.
FGA for LeBron James, 2016-2017 season
As you can see here, there are 14 zones here that we’re concerned about (we don’t care about the 0-for-1 on half-court heaves). There are a couple of spots where James is really good — at the hoop, where he is one of the best finishers of all time — and at the top of the three-point circle. Let’s streamline these 14 zones into three, for the sake of simplicity:
Well then. If you can keep James out of the middle of the floor, he’s a much less effective shooter. He shot 54 percent from the field overall this season (and specifically, he also shot 54 percent against the Celtics in the regular season), but you can try to push him to definitive zones where he’s not as effective. This is easier said than done, of course. James is able to get to the rim so frequently because he is so strong, and because the Cavs do a good job of designing plays that maximize his chances of getting to the rim.
Be Wary of the Pick-and-Roll (aka no Amir Johnson)
One of those plays that gets James to the rim is the pick-and-roll. It has always been a deadly play in the NBA, but this season, it seemed to ramp up its effectiveness even more, as teams have started their pick-and-rolls further and further from the hoop. Thomas devastated the Bulls with this play in the first round, as Chicago’s bigs like Robin Lopez just couldn’t keep up with him so far from the hoop.
James and the Cavs utilize this move frequently. James was the ball handler on the pick-and-roll 19.9 percent of the time he had the ball in the regular season, and Kyrie Irving was 34 percent of the time he had the ball. This has escalated in the playoffs. James is at 24.9 percent frequency, and Irving is at 42.9 percent (and Deron Williams is at 43.6 percent). Of players who have played at least five games in the playoffs, only eight players have been the ball handler on the pick-and-roll with greater frequency than Williams and Irving (one of them being Thomas).
The Celtics need to worry about two different things when the Cavs go to the pick-and-roll. First and foremost is that they can’t let the Cavs pick-and-roll James (or Irving) onto Isaiah Thomas. A few times this postseason, J.R. Smith has been the roll man on Cavs pick-and=rolls, and you can bet the Cavs will try to exploit that matchup in the Conference Finals to get James on Thomas. If they do, James will get to the rack every time and might even get Thomas in foul trouble. The Celtics can’t have that — James’ defender (and/or Irving’s defender) and Thomas will have to work hard to break up those pick-and-rolls before they can begin.
That probably won’t happen that much though. In the regular season, the primary people the Cavs used as pick setters/roll men on the pick-and-roll were Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love and Channing Frye. This is where we come to Amir Johnson, and how he needs to not play at all in this series. If Johnson is covering one of them (most likely Thompson) and is switched onto James, you can just about bank that James is getting to the rim, and will get at least two points, if not three. Johnson simply isn’t fast enough to stay with James. Al Horford, Kelly Olynyk and Jonas Jerebko aren’t much faster, but Johnson will definitely be the most easily exploited. He hasn’t played much in the postseason for this very reason, but it’s time to go extreme and just glue him to the bench.
But even if the Celtics can do all of that …
LeBron James is one of the greatest players in NBA history, and he has made a habit out of tormenting Boston. While the Celtics do have three players who can match James’ intensity in Jaylen Brown, Jae Crowder and Marcus Smart, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to control him when the season is on the line. Certainly, Boston wasn’t able to control him during the regular season, and no one has been able to control him in this year’s postseason. Stopping him, or marginally slowing him down, is the ultimate task for any NBA team. If the Celtics can keep their defenders on him fresh and energetic, keep him out of the middle of the floor and not allow the Cavs to create mismatches for him on the pick-and-roll, they should be able to slow him down some, but they won’t be able to shut him down completely.
