On Monday, the Golden State Warriors dismantled a healthy Cleveland Cavaliers team on their home court in convincing fashion. Directly after the blowout loss, Cleveland fans immediately scapegoated Kevin Love, who struggled mightily throughout the game. Love missed four of his five field goal attempts, and the defending NBA champions were able to highlight his defensive deficiencies in numerous pick-and-roll situations. With Love an easy target, David Blatt has gone under the radar, somehow evading all of the criticism around his team.
When the Cavaliers traded for Love in August of 2014, Cleveland knew exactly what type of player the organization was acquiring. Love was far from an unknown commodity, and his strengths and weaknesses were quite clear after a quick glance of his six-year stint with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Simply, Love excels as a high usage player, possessing elite rebounding ability, decent 3-point shooting and effective passing skills. His problem has always been defense, and that was not expected to improve with a change of scenery.
Still, after losing by 34 points to the Warriors, Love’s defense has been the discussion of fans all over social media. This obsession makes absolutely no sense, as Love was always known as one of the least competent defensive players in the league. Fans apparently need to be reminded that he was acquired to be a offensive sidekick next to LeBron James, a scorer capable of taking some of the offensive load off of James and point guard Kyrie Irving.
However, over a year and a half into Love’s stay with the Cavaliers, his role is still unsettled and confusing. Most noticeably, Love’s low-post scoring has been largely underutilized. Love has posted up 22.7 percent of the time this season. Although this seems like a fair amount, he should be fed even more in the post considering where this ranks among the league leaders. Love’s scoring average of 1.03 points per possession in these situations ranks seventh in the NBA in terms of efficiency among players who have averaged at least 2.0 post-ups per game.
Knowing this, Blatt’s best option would be to use Love fewer in pick-and-roll situations, for which he is used 16.6 percent of the time according to NBA.com statistics. He has been largely inefficient in this situation, ranking in the 30th percentile as the roll man. Instead, most of these plays should be made into opportunities in the post, where the results are much better.
Additionally, Love’s role as a spot-up shooter in Cleveland has diminished his greatest greatest strength, his offensive rebounding ability. In Minnesota, his offensive rebound percentage was an enormous 12.5 percent. However, in Cleveland, this number has fallen to 7.6 percent.
With Love used as a perimeter threat, his 3-point attempt rate has predictably skyrocketed. With the Cavaliers, Love’s 3-point field goal attempt rate has increased by 20.2 percent, and his shots from inside have plumeted. With the Timberwolves, 37.0 percent of his shots came within three feet of the basket. In wine and gold, however, this number has fallen to 21.8 percent.
Of course, there is a simple way to help mold Love’s role into one that is more similar to the one he occupied in Minnesota. Blatt must start pulling him out of the game about four minutes into every contest in an attempt to stagger his minutes with James and Irving. This would give him the opportunity to be the offensive go-to guy of the second unit, while also helping to possibly hide his defensive weaknesses against other bench players.
For a coach touted as an offensive genius, Blatt has failed to make these simple observations. Consequently, one of his greatest potential weapons has been degraded to the team’s scapegoat. Not only has Blatt failed to put Love in a position to succeed, his previously labeled “Spurs-esque” offense has instead produced the fourth most isolation plays in the NBA this season. In the midst of all of this, Love has taken the brunt of the criticism instead of the team’s faltering head coach.
