Kevin Love Holds Key To Cavaliers’ Title Hopes

As the Cleveland Cavaliers entered last year’s NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors without Kevin Love, LeBron James and the Eastern Conference champs knew that the absence of their injured all-star could be enough to lose the seven-game series before it even began.

One year later, the star-studded Cavs have dropped the opening game of their NBA Finals rematch with the defending champs 104-99, and although Love finished with a solid 17 points and a team-high 13 rebounds in Thursday night’s loss, the high-priced power forward remains the key to ending Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought.

Kevin Love & Tristan Thompson each had double-doubles in Game 1, chatting at Media Avail on @NBATV today. #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/AcNgH9LKQd

— NBA (@NBA) June 3, 2016

Clearly unhappy with his team’s performance, James seemed most concerned with the Cavaliers’ offense when he spoke to the media following Cleveland’s Game 1 loss.

”When you get outscored 45-10 on the bench and give up 25 points off 17 turnovers, no matter what someone does or doesn’t do, it’s going to be hard to win, especially on the road,” said James. ”Don’t matter what you do with Steph and Klay, don’t matter what we do with Draymond.”

Throughout the Cavs’ first round sweep of the Detroit Pistons, Love posted averages of 18.8 points and 12 rebounds a game, and the former UCLA Bruin continued that pace by averaging 19 points and 13 rebounds a night during Cleveland’s second-round destruction of the Atlanta Hawks.

Evidenced by eight straight wins, all was good in the land of LeBron. The Cavaliers were finally firing on all cylinders, King James was eyeing his sixth straight trip to the NBA Finals, and Love was producing more double-doubles than a Tim Horton’s employee.

But then came the Eastern Conference Finals and a date with the Toronto Raptors — a team that was forced to play without red-hot center Jonas Valanciunas for almost the entire series. Unfortunately for Love, once-unknown center Bismack Biyombo and the rest of the Raptor big-men still managed to put an immediate end to Love’s string of eight straight double-doubles.

It’s no coincidence that Toronto won its only two games of the series — Games 2 and 3, when Love was at his worst. Despite averaging a respectable 16.5 points in the first two games of the East Finals, Love posted averages of only 6.5 points and 4.5 rebounds in those two losses, and if Cleveland is actually going to dethrone Golden State, the numbers he finished with in Thursday’s series-opening loss must be the bare minimum moving forward.

"We need to focus on playing our brand of basketball."

Full KLove Interview: https://t.co/K0QwsUPMrX #CavsTV pic.twitter.com/0LVhdJAVfY

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) June 3, 2016

After eliminating the Raptors, James explained what having a healthy Love, and Kyrie Irving, has meant to this team at the post-game press conference.

”We wouldn’t be at this point today going to the Finals without those two,” said James. ”Throughout the first three rounds, they’ve been the reason why we’ve played at such a high level. They’ve accepted the challenge. They wanted to get back to this moment. Ky being out seven months, this guy [Love] doing rehab for three-and-a-half months on his shoulder, they just had so much built up anxiety or rage or excitement or whatever the case may be throughout the whole process. Just to be back on the floor and to show why we were all put together.”

When asked by the media if his play on the defensive side of the ball had contributed to a surprisingly slow offensive night from Golden State’s dynamic-duo of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, or if both were simply having a rough night, Love was obviously hesitant to praise both his as well as his team’s defensive effort.

”I’d say a little bit of both. It’s seldom seen that they’re [Curry and Thompson] going to have a night like that so we even need to be better come Sunday,” Love told a crowd of reporters gathered in Cleveland’s locker room. ”We know that we need to neutralize them as much as we can and that’s easier said than done, but also their bench. I mean their bench was great tonight, primarily [Shaun] Livingston gave them a big lift and that’s something that we’re going to need to look at and see where we can take advantage.”

Love has never been much of a shot-blocker, but his ability to intelligently disrupt Golden State’s offense and make things unpleasant for anyone attempting to drive makes him defensively irreplaceable.

But LeBron didn’t force his Cavs to acquire Love for defensive purposes. With the exception of an injury-plagued 2012-13 campaign, Love averaged a minimum of 26 points per game during his last three years in Minnesota. And if he’s going to be the Finals’ X-factor that Cleveland needs him to be, Love must consistently produce those numbers again.

[Photo By-Andy Lyons/Getty Images]