Game 4 goes to Golden State

photo via espn.com

After many questions were raised about the way the Warriors were playing Lebron James, coach Steve Kerr made some adjustments. It began with his starting lineup, he decided to go smaller by replacing Andrew Bogut with Andre Igudala, who had a monster game with 22 points and 8 rebounds. He was the primary defender on LeBron, 20 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists. He held his own with the assistance of lots of double teams, which was another Kerr adjustment. Timofey Mosgov had a career high 28 points with 10 boards, Tristen Thompson chipped in 12 points and 13 rebounds. In the previous 3 games they only double teamed James 15 times on the 270+ touches. It worked, James was "held" 20 points, 12 boards, and 8 assists. 

photo via espn.com

Kerr adjustments were pretty telling. Only playing Bogut for 3 mins, but he got his money's worth in those 3 minutes, with 3 fouls and had a hard foul on James, which lead the whole city of Cleveland to collectively held their breathe for a few minutes after he launched himself into a courtside camera. The resulting damaged was quite a gash, that was eventually glued, on the side of his head. Another key adjustment of Kerr's was just playing 7 guys in this game, minus the subs during garbage time. The key player I thought was David Lee who brings even more offense to a talented Warrior team. He's not the best defender but he held his own. Stephen Curry had a decent game with 22 points and 6 assists, Draymond Green added 17 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists.

It now becomes a 3 game series with games 5 & 7 in Oakland. I think everyone has been entertained with this matchup, since this is one of the most watched finals ever, with crazy rating numbers for all the games up to this point. 

Game 4 Highlights

Game 5 is Sunday night at 7pm on ABC.