It was a rough Saturday evening for the Indiana Pacers, who lost Game 1 by a single point to the Cleveland Cavaliers after CJ Miles blew a potential game-winning shot.
The Cavaliers kept picking on Jeff Teague in their Game 1 NBA Playoff victory
Poor Jeff Teague tried guarding LeBron James. It didn’t end well.
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
But you have to feel particularly bad for Jeff Teague, who the Cavaliers consistently targeted and abused on defense — leading to a myriad of easy buckets for LeBron James and Kevin Love.
In this third quarter example, LeBron and Kyrie Irving execute a high pick and roll forcing 6’1 Teague onto a much-bigger, much-stronger LeBron. The results are exactly what you’d expect:
In another instance, Kyrie uses a similar scheme to switch Teague onto Kevin Love, who easily backs down the point guard for a baby hook shot:
With 1:17 left to go in the fourth, Teague was switched onto LeBron yet again, who used his superior quickness and size to draw a foul:
So how did this happen?
It’s unreasonable to expect Teague to contain Love and James in the paint, yet he was asked to do so time and time again thanks to Indiana’s defensive scheme. Head coach Nate McMillan had his players switch nearly every time Cleveland ran a pick and roll — an ineffective strategy as Cleveland shot nearly 54 percent from the floor.
The Pacers, reluctant to leave Cleveland’s shooters open for three, were hesitant to give Teague help when he was isolated. This seek-and-destroy offense is nothing new for Cleveland — we’ve seen the Cavs employ this same tactic against Steph Curry and Isaiah Thomas.
If Indiana wants to steal Game 2 they’ll need to stop switching everything on defense, or bring over a double team to give poor Jeff Teague a break.
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