3 tactical matchups that will define the NBA Finals

Individual matchups in the NBA aren't what they used to be. In a Finals series that will feature help-heavy defensive schemes and a ton of switching, the matchups-within-the-matchup are broader than just who guards who.

With that in mind, here are three tactical matchups that will define Raptors-Warriors (or at least the early part of it, before Kevin Durant returns and changes the whole complexion of the series):

Raptors vs. Curry pick-and-rolls

For as long as Durant is out, high pick-and-rolls for Steph Curry are going to form the backbone of Golden State's offense. And for as long as Marc Gasol is on the floor, he'll be the target of those plays. The Raptors might be willing to switch Gasol - their slowest-footed regular - out to the perimeter late in the shot clock, but in most circumstances, they'll try hard to avoid it.

In doing so, Toronto will likely play a conventional coverage, with Gasol dropping back while the on-ball defender chases Curry above the screen. The challenge for Gasol - as it is for any poor soul who gets dragged into a ball-screen action for Curry - will be to play up high enough to challenge his lethal pull-up 3-pointer, but not so high that he'll concede an easy blow-by or commit a foul.

Toronto's on-ball defenders will also have a lot to say about how much damage Curry can do in those situations. If they can stay connected while trailing him around screens, it will make Gasol's job considerably easier. But if they're getting hung up on those screens, or not fighting hard enough to get back into the play, Gasol will find himself marooned on an uninhabitable island.

The Raptors have plenty of options to choose from for that assignment. Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, and Fred VanVleet are all pretty adept at navigating screens and pressuring the ball. Odds are Toronto will start by cross-matching in the backcourt and deploying Danny Green on Curry, in the hopes that Green's additional length can make a difference.

That likely leaves Lowry on Klay Thompson, and while he gives up a lot of size in that matchup, he'll be able to get into Thompson and make dribbling a dicey proposition. And if Thompson wants to grind the Warriors' offense to a halt to post up Lowry, the Raptors will gladly take it. VanVleet doesn't start, but he's going to play alongside Lowry a lot and will often guard Curry in that alignment.

Meanwhile, it's important that the Raptors avoid situations where Gasol is guarding Draymond Green, Curry's preferred pick-and-roll partner. As long as Gasol is guarding one of the Warriors' traditional bigs who are light on playmaking chops, such as Kevon Looney, the Raptors can feel comfortable using Gasol to hard-hedge or trap those pick-and-rolls in spots, trusting that they can survive the ensuing four-on-three on the back end. Toronto might get particularly aggressive blitzing side pick-and-rolls, where the sideline basically acts as a third defender.

Of course, the best way to counter those pick-and-rolls is to switch, and outside of Gasol (and maybe Serge Ibaka), the Raptors can switch with anybody. Kawhi Leonard won't be Curry's primary defender, except perhaps in end-of-game emergencies, but the Raptors can stow him on Draymond. In that case, Golden State using Green as the screener would simply be an invitation for Kawhi to switch onto Curry, which seems like something the Warriors want to avoid. Still, that's another place the Raptors have options, because Pascal Siakam - with his outrageous combination of length and speed - can switch pretty effectively, too. The goal here is to force the Warriors to try scoring in isolation, rather than opening up Green's short-roll playmaking.

That's not to say switching is a panacea. The Warriors will still catch the Raptors off guard by slipping screens, Curry can work himself into space by veering in the opposite direction, and at least some of Golden State's screen-setters (DeMarcus Cousins, for example) should be able to take advantage of the other end of those switches.

But the Raptors have the personnel to at least limit the effectiveness of Curry pick-and-rolls, which is a huge piece of the defensive puzzle a team needs to solve in order to beat the Warriors.

Warriors vs. Kawhi mismatches

Virtually any player guarding Leonard one-on-one represents a mismatch for him. He can burn bigs with his shifty handle and laser-guided step-back jumper just as easily as he can overwhelm smaller defenders with brute force.

Last season, the Raptors made a big show of diversifying their offense and moving away from iso-ball to a more pass-happy approach. But they got closer to their roots this season after acquiring Leonard, and even though the addition of Gasol reinvigorated their ball and player movement, they should probably try to hunt one-on-one mismatches in this series.

Doing so would help Toronto control the pace, the way teams such as the 2015 and 2016 Cavaliers and the 2018 Rockets did to great effect against the Warriors. Doing so should help the Raptors limit turnovers, another necessary means of stifling the Warriors' transition attack. It could also be the key to putting Curry in foul trouble and attempting to burn his energy at the defensive end, ideally limiting what he can do offensively.

The Raptors can do that by screening for Kawhi with Curry's man, which figures to be Danny Green. But the Warriors have a couple of reliable counters to that - one being to pre-switch someone else onto Green, and the other being to have Curry hedge and recover until the shot clock gets low enough to make switching palatable. Even though he was in foul trouble on multiple occasions against Houston, Curry's hedging was very effective at preventing James Harden from turning the corner. It killed the Rockets' offensive flow and forced them into a bunch of desperate, late-clock scenarios.

However, the Raptors can learn from one of the Rockets' mistakes in that series by simply moving faster in those situations - either to make the switch stick or to keep the Warriors in scramble mode as they try to avoid it. But going quickly in the half court typically isn't Leonard's instinct. He takes his time and often rejects screens altogether. That's part of the reason why, when they had an opportunity to do something similar in the Philadelphia 76ers series, the Raptors didn't attack JJ Redick as frequently or as effectively as expected.

For Toronto, the pick-and-pop could be a nice antidote to the hedge-and-recover, making Green's shooting all the more important. The same goes for Lowry and VanVleet, both of whom are excellent screen-setters (and savvy poppers) who will likely have Curry guarding them for stretches and need to make open shots.

The Warriors will be looking to protect Curry on defense, and they'll send emergency help if and when the Raptors secure the matchup they want. But no matter which defender Leonard isolates against, Golden State will likely flood the strong side and shade early help toward him. Even Thompson and Andre Iguodala give up a good deal of size, and may find themselves overmatched in single coverage. Draymond might be the exception, but it's unclear how frequently the Warriors will have him guard Leonard. Doing so would limit the amount of help they would have to send, but it would also remove Draymond as a helper - his best role.

On the other hand, while the Warriors are a strong help-and-recover team -they had a lot of success blitzing the Portland Trail Blazers' backcourt in the conference finals - they should be wary of loading up too heavily on Leonard. Toronto's supporting cast is far more capable than Portland's and Leonard's passing has been rounding into form. He had 16 assists combined in Games 5 and 6 against Milwaukee, the most over any two-game stretch in his career. Even more impressive, 14 of those 16 assists led to 3-pointers.

Regardless, the Warriors are going to make the rest of the Raptors prove they're ready for this moment. Everyone from Lowry to Gasol to Green to Siakam will need to make shots, and they've all looked passive or hesitant to shoot at some point this postseason. Meanwhile, the Warriors have allowed a lower share of opponents' shots in the restricted area than any team in the playoffs.

If Leonard is seeing extra bodies and can't make any headway going to the rim, a lot of pressure is going to shift to those other guys. Maybe too much.

Roving defenders vs. non-shooters

Toronto's half-court defense has been suffocating this postseason, largely because it's faced teams that play multiple poor shooters at the same time, and it's left those non-threats alone to swarm ball-handlers. Without Durant, Golden State almost always has to play multiple non-shooters at once.

Of course, Golden State's non-shooters can't really be treated like those from other teams. The Warriors - and Iguodala in particular - are better than anyone at sneaking behind the defense with backdoor cuts. And there is always the threat of one of those non-shooters (Green in particular) springing Curry or Thompson with a well-timed screen - whether it's on a dribble-handoff after the ball finds them, or on a split-cut action away from the ball. That means you almost have to stay as locked in on those players as you do the shooters. The Raptors faced a similar dilemma against the Sixers, and while there were games in which they locked in and vaporized the Joel Embiid-Redick dribble-handoff, there were others in which they got torched by it.

The Warriors - who gleefully helped off of the likes of Portland's Al-Farouq Aminu, Moe Harkless, and Evan Turner without consequence - will also need to adjust. The Raptors just don't play many non-shooters, and the ones they do play can make a defense pay for its negligence in a way Portland's could not.

On that note, the Raptors will need Siakam to rediscover his offensive mojo. At his best, the spidery forward takes the runway that opponents give him and uses it against them, gathering a head of steam before juking and finishing an off-kilter layup at an angle and tempo that flummoxes the rim defender.

He was doing a fine job of that in the playoffs, too, until running into Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Brook Lopez - three gargantuan interior defenders who sat back, dared him to shoot, and met him at the rim any time he declined their invitation. Whether it's because of the calf and hamstring injuries Siakam picked up along the way, or because he's inside his own head, or because the guys he's faced are just that good at defense, he's shooting only 59.2 percent at the rim in these playoffs, down from 70.6 percent in the regular season.

Siakam doesn't have the same luxuries as Draymond because the Raptors don't have nearly the same caliber of handoff shooting threats, but they did start using him as a screener more in the latter stages of the Bucks series, as a way to attack Lopez in space. Whether they do something similar in this series will depend on who the Warriors stick on him.

If they opt to follow the Sixers' and Bucks' blueprint and defend Siakam with Looney, then it can still work, particularly with Kawhi handling the ball. If it's Green, then Siakam is better off working as a pick-and-roll ball-handler than as a screener. And if either of those guys guards him by hanging back and waiting at the rim, Siakam should have more success going right at them and finishing than he had in the last two rounds. Draymond is an all-world defender, and Looney is no slouch, but neither of them can protect the rim like Embiid, Antetokounmpo, or Lopez.

An interesting tactical decision is always which defenders a team stashes on the opposing offense's lesser shooting threats. In this case, both teams have a plethora of options. The best bet for the Warriors is that Draymond guards Siakam, allowing him to be a disruptive free safety. But either Iguodala or Looney could also see time in that matchup and thrive in help situations.

Leonard, Siakam, and Gasol are all candidates for Raptors rover duties, but their best option might be Lowry. We tend to think of the most effective help defenders as being big guys, but Lowry's as good as they come at digging down on drives and post-ups, stepping up to draw charges, and going vertical at the rim with every inch of his (alleged) 6-foot frame. The Raptors can stash him on a non-shooter like Iguodala and let him freelance away from the ball.

If anyone or anything can at least plant a seed of doubt in Draymond's mind when he catches the ball on the short roll, it's probably the thought of Lowry beating him to the spot, sliding under him, and letting himself get bowled over for a charge.