Trick strategies for beating the Warriors

When facing a team as powerful as the Golden State Warriors, normal game strategies and tactics no longer apply. What worked against the lesser foes of the Eastern Conference may not work quite as well against this team. That is why the Cavs need to abandon traditional strategies and come up with more creative ways to win.

The Cavs could tell the Warriors before the series starts that anyone who attempts a three is a loser. Nobody wants to be called a loser, and let's face it. When comparing the Warriors to the Cavs, one team has an abundance of cool dudes. The other team does not. LeBron, JR Smith and Shumpert alone out-cool the entire Warriors team.

Clearly, the Warriors will see how cool the Cavs are and say to themselves, "We don't want the cool kids to think we're a bunch of losers. Let's stop shooting threes." That's when the Cavs rain threes on the Warriors while calling them names every time the Warriors attempt their own threes. The psychological damage of having cool people call them lame should provide a huge benefit for the Cavs.

Another strategy is the old Student Class President "I'll vote for you if you vote for me" pact. LeBron should good-naturedly suggest to Curry that they guard each other the entire series. Why would Curry agree to this? Good question, reader. LeBron will lie and say that he'll agree not to try hard on defense if Curry agrees not to try either. He can suggest that it'll give them both much needed rest to make the games into fun offensive shoes. Surely, Curry will jump at the opportunity to shoot threes all day basically unguarded.

But here's the trick... LeBron will try VERY hard to guard Curry while destroying him on the other end. What's Curry going to do then? Tell his teammates the truth about their pact? After he looked like such a hero for saying he'd take on the responsibility of guarding LeBron? That would be embarrassing.

Curry's choices are to suck it up and let LeBron destroy him or shamefully admit that LeBron duped him. Either way, the Cavs gain a strategic advantage here.

A more outside the box idea relies on the Cavs' staff having access to the Warriors' locker room, so it may not be possible until the first Cavs home game (game three of the series). The equipment staff could sneak into the visitors' locker room and sew one of those electronic fart noise devices into the butt of all the Warriors' shorts. When they are on the court, the staff would then activate the fart noise devices in strategic, high tension moments. Everyone would think the Warriors were farting all over the court. The entire crowd would laugh at them. Can you imagine trying to make big plays when you think you have bad gas and everyone knows it? Psychologically speaking, this could be crippling.

I've focused on mental strategies so far, but I also have some strategies that will cause more physical distress to the Warriors. First and foremost,  they should have JR Smith follow the Warriors to wherever they are having their team dinner before game one. From there, let JR be JR. Nobody can resist a night out with JR Smith, and nobody but JR Smith can survive a night out with JR Smith. The Warriors won't feel 100% again until they have the entire off-season to rehab.

The only risk for this strategy is a great one. The NBA may cancel the Finals entirely when half the Warriors are either hospitalized or (God forbid) dead from the before mentioned night out. And if the Finals aren't cancelled, I worry that this strategy may taint the title. I don't want anyone to die just so my Cavs can win. This strategy may be TOO good.

A more humane option to physically exhaust does involve a fair amount of breaking and entering, but it's worth it. The Cavs could all break into the Warriors' houses and nail all their furniture to the ceiling. Everything in their houses would look exactly the same, but on the ceiling instead of the floor.

The players would then have to spend all night trying to repeatedly climb into bed only to immediately fall from the bed to the floor. They'll just think gravity got all weird and the laws of physics don't apply anymore. That is, of course, until they step outside in the morning and realize it was all a clever trick. By then, they'll be tired from a night of no sleep and bruised from falling from the ceiling to the floor over and over again.

These are just a few ideas that could give the Cavs an advantage over the course of this seven game series. I don't know if it'll be enough to overcome the talent of a 67 win team that rolled through the Western Conference playoffs, but the Cavs need to take every opportunity to close the gap. Hopefully Blatt is a good enough coach to use similar tactics in this series.