The NBA Playoffs are becoming a battleground for crossmatching

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Both the Cavaliers and Lakers tried the common tactic early in their playoff series. Has it worked for either team consistently?

Over the last week, the NBA took the intensity barometer and turned the dial all the way up.

Playoff basketball is back, and the first few games in each series are a great reminder of why we languish through the regular season. The contests are all-out wars and physical battles, thrilling for consumers and surreal experiences for the players to be part of.

On the cerebral side, the tactical back-and-forth adjustments of a playoff series are among the most fascinating subplots in all of sports. Watching how teams choose to defend and attack each other comes through the first few games. By the end of Game 2 or Game 3, we start to see adjustments and the tactical warfare from each coach in full effect.

One of the most common tactics at a team’s disposal is the idea of a cross-match. In essence, it’s a fancy way of saying “instead of guarding the guy my size, I’m going to guard someone else”. The toggling of those on-ball defensive assignments alters how an offense can and will attack, and these decisions have varying degrees of success.

There are two series in particular, each of which are split 1-1, where we have seen cross-matching take place and seen how either utilizing or abandoning it can change the trajectory of a series.

The Cleveland Cross-Match

The entire idea of cross-matching is to cut off the head of the snake. Lead guards are typically players who initiate offense, organize their teammates, and have the ball in their hands for the longest periods of time. By putting abnormal length and athleticism onto such an important piece, defense can often disrupt the flow of offense and slow down the tempo of a game.

For the Cleveland Cavaliers, their strategy of putting a bigger defender on Jalen Brunson is a sound one. Brunson is ultra physical for a point guard, and with two smaller backcourt pieces in Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, the Cavs want to avoid exposing their main offensive creators to that exhaustion and potential foul trouble. Cross-matching only works if you don’t give those points back on the other end, though.

Enter Isaac Okoro, the strong-bodied 6’6 wing the Cavaliers have started most of the year. He’s been an impactful on-ball defender — which is why he’s on the floor. But he’s prone to be a weak spot for the Cavs on offense, one that the Knicks have consistently exploited to start the series.

Individually, Okoro was hit-or-miss against Brunson in Game 1 of the series. Jalen had a really strong game, but many of his best plays came when he was able to go after Garland on the inside. The Cavs tried to push Brunson out of the middle of the floor, and while Okoro’s ‘no middle’ positioning was a little extreme at first, he adjusted as the game went on.

Okoro wasn’t incredibly successful on defense, and the Cavs still needed to construct a gameplan that would prevent Garland or Mitchell from being exposed while making Brunson’s life difficult. The Cavs made an adjustment heading into Game 2 to apply more pressure to the Knicks point guard with traps and perimeter denials, getting the ball out of his hands to avoid any of those situations from arising.

Without being impactful on defense, Okoro lost his spot in the rotation. The Cavs needed 3-point shooting on the offensive end, something Okoro wasn’t providing. He is an easy target to be helped off of due to his subpar stroke and lack of confidence. It was far too easy for the Knicks to ignore him early in the series and clog the lane against their other scorers.

Bickerstaff responded during Game 2, playing Okoro a paltry three minutes before pivoting to the floor-spacer in Caris LeVert. The trapping had some success, especially considering the limitations of Mitchell Robinson as a creator whenever Brunson would cough up the rock.

Cleveland might be best served to go length-by-committee on Brunson. There’s still a need to cross-match and save Garland or Mitchell from those matchups, hence the hard hedging they do on any guard-to-guard screens to preserve matchups. But with a poor-shooting Evan Mobley (20% from 3-point range since March 1st) needing to stay on the floor, their offense cannot sustain having two non-shooters in there with Okoro. Kudos to Bickerstaff and company for ratcheting up the pressure and forcing Robinson to be more involved in Game 2.

Now we get to see what the counterpunch is for the Knicks in Game 3 of the series.

Mixed Matchups in Memphis

Similar to the Cavs-Knicks series, the Los Angeles Lakers started with a desire to use their size to blanket All-Star point guard Ja Morant and disrupt the Grizzlies offense. Jarred Vanderbilt, one of the most active and gracefully athletic forwards in the league, drew the initial assignment.

The Lakers won Game 1 thanks to some heroics from Austin Reaves on the offensive end. It was Vanderbilt who frustrated the Grizzlies star player throughout, even setting the tone on the first possession of the game with a strip from behind.

Vanderbilt was disciplined on Morant throughout. His closeouts were pristine, and he played the speedy point guard a step back. Instead of using his length to crowd the point guard, his length would enable him to stay closer to the lane, dare a jump shot, and then be able to contest any jumper he forced.

Vanderbilt also would face-guard Morant in the full-court to prevent him from getting touches. He could do that with his athletic tools, though the strategy behind why he did it is what’s most important: the idea was to force someone other than Memphis’ best scorer to beat the Lakers.

Those two strategies held Morant to 18 points and 6-11 shooting inside the arc, no free throw attempts, and only two assists to six turnovers.

Of course, Morant got hurt in the stretch run of that game, which changed the series. Backup Tyus Jones, a drastically different style of player than Morant, was inserted into the starting lineup.

Lakers coach Darvin Ham stuck with the strategy in Game 2 of putting Vanderbilt onto the head of the snake. It didn’t have the same impact against Jones. Tyus is a capable shooter, so Vanderbilt’s length didn’t help clog the lane while simultaneously guarding a top threat. Jones wasn’t worth denying and spent more time either in the corners or high on the wings just standing there out of the play.

In essence, Vanderbilt’s defensive impact was minimized because there wasn’t an easy top target for him to focus on. Once halftime came around, Ham adjusted and put Vanderbilt on Jackson and either D’Angelo Russell or Austin Reaves on Tyus Jones. But the Lakers seemed unprepared to handle ball actions in their new lineups, not knowing whether they should switch or stay.

Vanderbilt is another non-shooting threat who is detrimental to the Lakers’ offensive spacing. LeBron James and Anthony Davis face more bodies and traffic on the inside when they play with Vando. His value in this series is somewhat tied to the health of Morant in giving him a worthwhile matchup, or in seeing if head coach Darvin Ham will play him on another scorer like Desmond Bane.

Cross-matching is really common in the playoffs and can be really effective. As the series goes on, teams start to adjust and find ways to get their best offensive players free. When people say a best-of-seven series is “like a chess match”, this is what they’re referring to: the back-and-forth adjustment of who guards who and in what coverages.

For cross-matching to be most effective, it needs to avoid creating a disadvantage on the other end. Okoro and Vanderbilt bring a lack of spacing to their teams that makes their role pretty simple: either stop the best player or come sit on the bench.