While the regular season is a grueling slog that forces teams to think big picture, the NBA playoffs are a different beast. Each game becomes a chess match, where little strategic nuances can be the difference between success and failure. In these previews, we’ll take a look at one intriguing tactical quandary facing each team.

Cleveland Cavaliers

- Taking away the Jeff Teague-Thad Young transition connection

When Frank Vogel left town, the idea was that the Pacers would be more committed to a style befitting of today’s NBA -- small, open and up-tempo. But as this season wore on, it became clear that Indiana wasn’t going to be the midwest’s version of Golden State. Nate McMillian has a track record of snail-paced teams and the Pacers finished this season ranked just 18th in pace, per our RealGM rankings. A slower pace, however, doesn’t mean Indiana isn’t capable of putting pressure on opponents in transition.

With assist machine Jeff Teague at the helm, Indiana opponents are always at risk of giving up easy buckets in the first few seconds of a possession. In particular, Teague has found a connection early in the shot clock with forward Thad Young. Whether it’s Young leaking out…

...or Teague spotting him slicing through the defense later on the break….

...these two combine to give the Pacers an easy bucket or two every game.

As far as Cleveland is concerned, giving an inferior opponent preventable opportunities is the best way to let them hang around long enough to make games interesting. If the Cavs can be diligent about rotating back, locating Young and forcing Teague into being more of a scorer on the break -- where he’s far worse according to Synergy data -- they will eliminate opportunities for a middling Indiana offense (they finished the season ranked 15th) to pick up easy baskets.

Given their massive talent advantage, Cleveland’s ability to shore up any leaks like this should allow them to make this series short and sweet.

Indiana Pacers

- Attacking Kevin Love in pick-&-rolls

Stopping the Cavaliers' offense is going to be an insurmountable task for a Pacer defense that has been nothing but ordinary -- ranked 15th just like their offense, per our RealGM rankings. Instead, Indiana needs to milk every offensive advantage they can in the hopes they score enough points to hang with Cleveland deep into this series.

The player that most teams target when facing the Cavs is Love. Under Ty Lue, Cleveland’s preferred pick-and-roll strategy with Love is to use a drop coverage -- where he sags back off the screen and protects the paint. This safe, simple strategy helps avoid exposing Love by making him show off or defend at the level of the screen. In more space, guards can have a field day attacking Love and generating easy buckets. Against a drop coverage, it’s easier for Love to concede mid-range shots to ballhandlers instead of the more valuable stuff near the basket or 3-point territory.

The downside of the always dropping Love off to protect the paint is that a big man who “pops” or “short rolls” will force Love into a mini-closeout on the perimeter. The good thing from Indiana’s perspective is that both their starting bigs are the type of players who do exactly those things.

While not a great pick-and-roll finisher per Synergy data, Young does pose some problems attacking recovering bigs when catching the ball on the roll higher on the floor. Because of a career being yo-yo’d back and forth from the paint to the perimeter, Young has the ability to catch and either attack the basket or shot off-the-dribble touch shots like this versus a recovering big man:

Young’s counterpart in the frontcourt, Myles Turner, is a more classic pop guy who floats around in the 16-20 foot range after screening for a teammate looking to unleash an accurate mid-range jumper:

Now mid-ranging Cleveland to death is clearly not going to be a winning strategy for Indiana. It’s important to remember, especially in the harsh playoff spotlight, that basketball is played and coached by human beings, not played on a spreadsheet. The goal for the Pacers should be to let Young and Turner attack Love in these pick-and-roll situations with enough success that it creates some sort of change -- whether it be Love abdicating his help responsibilities on the ballhandler due to a fear of Young or Turner making yet another shot in his face or Lue seeing a flurry of mid-range shots go in and opting to change his pick-and-roll strategy entirely.

For the Pacers to stay in this series, they will have to exploit the Cavs weaknesses as best they can and hope it forces a little bit of self-sabotage from their opponent along with it.