Game 6 Starting Lineups, June 16: The Larry O'Brien Trophy is in the house

The NBA championship is on the line at Quicken Loans Arena on Tuesday.

An entertaining but exhausting 82-game slog, four playoff rounds of varying quality and excitement, and an incredible, unexpectedly tight NBA Finals have all come down to this. Up 3-2 in the series, the Golden State Warriors can win their first title in 40 years - or the Cleveland Cavaliers can stay alive, moving within one win of the city's first championship since 1964.

The Warriors have won back-to-back games and appear, on the surface, to have effectively countered the Cavs' best shot at stopping them. Cleveland is still grinding the pace with a plodding, LeBron James-heavy offense, asking more of the best player in the world than is humanly possible. But the team defense has shown cracks, Andre Iguodala has made himself an NBA Finals MVP candidate defending James, and the Cavs have proven incapable of matching small-ball lineups with the Warriors, or playing without James for even a moment.

They tried going small in the second half of Game 5, starting J.R. Smith over Timofey Mozgov, but the results suggest Cleveland would be best served returning to its normal starters. This bigger lineup gives Cleveland a huge edge on the glass, extending already slow James possessions with offensive rebounds. They can try to hide Mozgov on Iguodala on defense, negating some of the danger of having two bigs navigating a wild, screen-heavy Warriors' attack.

The Cavs have had their best luck in the last four games - without Kyrie Irving - sticking with that starting group, or with Mozgov as the lone big on the floor:

The next chess move in the series belongs to Cavs head coach David Blatt. It may be his last salvo for the season. No pressure.

Here are Tuesday's projected starting lineups:

Golden State Warriors at Cleveland Cavaliers, 9 p.m. ET, ABC

Cavaliers PG Kyrie Irving (knee), PF Kevin Love (shoulder), C Anderson Varejao (Achilles) out for the season