Friday afternoon, the Cleveland Cavaliers got the kind of bad news they -- and everyone watching -- feared as soon as Kyrie Irving went down during the overtime period of their loss to the Golden State Warriors in Thursday's Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Irving was diagnosed with a fractured patella, which will require surgery and end his Finals. Where do the Cavaliers go from here? Here's how I would respond if I were Cleveland head coach David Blatt.
Start J.R. Smith
When Irving missed two games during the Eastern Conference finals, Blatt went to his backup, Matthew Dellavedova -- who responded with 28 points in two Cavaliers wins. That's the easy choice here, but I'm not sure it's the best one. The bolder alternative would be moving J.R. Smith back into the starting lineup and playing without a traditional point guard.
At the other end, the Cavaliers won't really miss having a true point guard on the floor because James is already running their offense. According to SportVU player tracking, James had 107 touches in Game 1, more than any other player. (Irving had 89, while Curry had 97 to lead Golden State.) And Shumpert, who played point guard in short stints for the New York Knicks, is a capable enough ball handler to keep James from having to bring the ball up all game.
Even if Dellavedova proves more effective than he was in Game 1, when Cleveland was outscored by 13 points in his 9:23 of playing time, bringing him off the bench produces more favorable matchups. It makes it easy for Blatt to stagger his playing time with James' rest and pits him against Warriors backup Shaun Livingston, who's less likely than Curry to expose Dellavedova's aggressive defensive pressure.
Find an eighth player
Since Kevin Love was lost to shoulder surgery, the Cavaliers have been relying largely on an eight-player rotation. Irving's injury reduces that to seven players, and it's unrealistic to survive the Finals without finding someone else capable of contributing.
Cleveland tried Mike Miller as a replacement for the suspended Smith to start its series with the Chicago Bulls, and he was outscored by 19 points in his 16 minutes of action. But Miller was more competent in Game 2 (plus-3 in 13 scoreless minutes) and has a history of providing unexpected contributions in the Finals, which means he'll probably get an extended look. Fellow veteran Shawn Marion, who actually started 24 times earlier this season but has yet to play more than six minutes in any playoff game, is also a likely option.
Again, there's a bolder choice: rookie Joe Harris. After seeing regular minutes in the first half of the season, Harris was pushed down the bench by the arrival of Shumpert and Smith via trade. He has played just 12 minutes in the postseason, all in lopsided wins. But Harris can at least make open 3-pointers (he shot 36.9 percent from beyond the arc in the regular season, fourth best on the Cavaliers), more than Miller and Marion may be capable of at this stage of their careers.
Muck up the game
While James has bristled at the label of being an underdog in this series, without Irving it's clear Cleveland is going to be overmatched in terms of talent and depth. The Cavaliers' best hope is to make the series less about those skills and more about size and strength. That means doubling down on James post-ups, an even more attractive strategy now that 1-3 pick-and-rolls trying to force Irving's defender to switch on James are no longer so problematic to the Golden State defense.
It also means, as much as possible, Cleveland keeping big men Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson on the court together. When both teams played their frontcourt starters, the Cavaliers outscored the Warriors by eight points in Game 1. Surely, Golden State will go back to a small lineup with Draymond Green in the middle earlier in Game 2 to try to force Cleveland to downsize as well. If the Cavaliers can somehow dictate both teams staying big, that would be a strategic victory.
Get lucky
If these suggestions sound a bit desperate, it's by design. While Cleveland managed to win twice without Irving against the Atlanta Hawks, as well as close out the Bulls with Irving limited to 12 minutes, beating the Warriors four times is a far more difficult task. At this point, even winning a couple of games looks daunting for the Cavaliers.
Having suffered terrible luck with injuries in the playoffs -- perhaps par for the course given Cleveland's tortured sports history -- they're going to need to offset that with good fortune elsewhere, whether it's Golden State struggling from beyond the arc like Eastern Conference foes or players like Smith and Dellavedova catching fire from downtown. Without Irving, that's the best the Cavaliers can hope for in this series now.