The general strategy was to keep GS from scoring 100, get into a dogfight late, and win. The Cavs were exhausted at the end of games (and over the course of the series) because of the extra playing time required following the injuries, and because they don't get an extra day of rest before home games as part of not having home court advantage.
In terms of specific adjustments, he played Mozgov far less in Game 5 than Game 4, for example. The difference was that in Game 4 the Cavs were down 15 with 5 minutes left (at home) while in Game 5 they were down 1 with 5 minutes left (on the road). Whenever he put in smaller players he was criticized. Whenever he didn't put in smaller players he was criticized, too.
Again, no coach in NBA history has won the finals with two of his top three scorers out. Are they all stupid? The GS fans are trying to make this about something other than the injuries (Cavs stupid coach, Cavs stupid GM, Cavs stupid trades, etc.) but the Cavs injuries are the decisive fact about the series.
I said specific examples, not broad regurgitated tv analysis. You can start with how Blatt poorly managed tempo which obviously will give him nightmares for a few nights. Tempo killed the series. Obviously something Lebron and Cavs were desperately trying to slow down but failed in epic proportions.
If you notice at the beginning of the series when the Cavs were giving it to GSW, Lebron walked the ball up and controlled tempo. This worked to a point until GSW went small and forced a faster tempo which completely swung the series. So genius Blatt still refuses to play Marion or Miller for a significant portion of minutes. Instead, he tries to combat tempo with gameplan which was a utter failure and still to this day has not figured out how to slow GSW down from the fast pace.
He tried playing small, which obviously forced a faster pace. He tried playing big, which would have worked had they not run out in transition so much for easy layups. That in itself worked against them even though they got a few layups. Blatt eventually tried to play big and pound the ball inside while GSW played small. It worked to a certain extent but they went away from it because Tristan Thompson simply has no experience being double teamed and was losing the ball on a consistent basis. Can't fault Tristan Thompson since he probably has never seen a double team in his entire NBA career. GSW bought the double from the blind side and Tristan Thompson had no idea who to pass to. Here is the problem, you have two bigs playing together yet no high low concepts run which are a distinct advantage when you play two bigs. It is very difficult to defend when A) Lebron is on the court, and B) your bigs keep the ball high.
I will give credit to Blatt for setting hard traps with perimeter players on Curry, it seemed effective until Curry/Kerr made the adjustment and opened passing lanes. The problem I saw was Lebron reading the pass at times and trying to shoot the lane. That worked once until Curry made the adjustment and skip passed for an open shot. Credit to Curry for A) handling the double team, and B) making incredibly difficult passes off either hand and off the dribble (Curry is a very underrated passer, despite his t/o ratio)
If you can't stop the fast pace, you need to extend your bench. That is the only option you have and he did not. Why? That is up to him. Do you think he could have at least found Marion time at the end of the 1st quarter? If he is an utter failure, you can take him out. If he is effective, you find minutes and a viable option. But keep your excuses, I see what I see in the game. You can regurgitate horrible tv analysis with broad generalities.
