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Kevin Love - Miami Ground Machine

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Is Kevin Love a Hero for Saving a Dog?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 48.3%
  • Too Right!

    Votes: 2 3.4%
  • Hotter than Jimmy G

    Votes: 15 25.9%
  • Jim Chones

    Votes: 13 22.4%

  • Total voters
    58
I think @Jscc 's point is that in a Kevin Love / Paul Millsap matchup, Love is at a marked advantage. It was not the correct coaching decision to have him exclusively perched at the 3-point line.

That was a mistake, by any measure.

Love should have been all over the floor, including the post. He's simply being misused, and in a big way.

I have to disagree, millsap has, until very recently, played love very well.

I will agree with it not being a good idea to exclusively perch him at the three point an partially agree with the misuse part.

I only partially agree because this isn't the worst way to use klove, he is a very good three point shooter, and the spacing he provides is invaluable to the team. I mean, I keep bring this up, but since lebron came back from injury the cavs have been murderous offensively and excellent defensively, and all the line-up data I have seen indicates very strongly that love is a major part of that.

I will say that the way love is used in the offense is very... uninspired. At this point it's nothing short of ridiculous that a kevin love ballscreen isn't a part of every play. That is such an effective tool that the cavs almost never use.

And if you're not going to have him set the ball screen, why not run some motion on the weak side? Everyone wants him to be aggressive but no one seems to understand that cutting into the lane for a post-up or whatever during a lebron or kyrie drive is not good basketball. You can't just randomly cut, you have to set that up.

We could, we absolutely could. It would be very easy to have love engage in some weak side screen action that gets him to the elbow, a three, a quick hit post-up, whatever. Keep the defense moving. That's not what we're running now and that's fine, rome wasn't built in a day and the current system is working pretty well. I do hope there is some evolution on offense though.

Oh, and btw, Kyrie and JR are pretty awful post-feeders, they wait way too long. You don't want to wait that long because refs let the post defender get away with a lot until the post up player actually has the ball.

Just as an exercise, watch klove feed the post to lebron or mozgov, and then watch kyrie or JR feed the post. Klove is actually the teams best post feeder imo.
 
He's simply being misused, and in a big way.

Then he needs to say something about it to the coach, and if he won't listen the media to shame Blatt into it.

Love has a ton of leverage right now with the team on how he is being used. He could walk at the end of the year, and that fucks up everything Lebron thinks he's building.

Make everyone involved start including you in ways beyond being the league's highest paid floor spacer or threaten to leave. If Lebron has a fit tell him to have fun winning titles on his own with TT clogging up the floor for him.

Lebron's not going to play any different unless forced to, so Love has got to decide if he is content with being relegated to 3 point specialist status.

He has enough leverage with his impending free agent status to tell everyone involved how he can be used more effectively and have them actually listen. Things are only going to change if he makes them change.
 
Then he needs to say something about it to the coach, and if he won't listen the media to shame Blatt into it.

Love has a ton of leverage right now with the team on how he is being used. He could walk at the end of the year, and that fucks up everything Lebron thinks he's building.

Make everyone involved start including you in ways beyond being the league's highest paid floor spacer or threaten to leave. If Lebron has a fit tell him to have fun winning titles on his own with TT clogging up the floor for him.

Lebron's not going to play any different unless forced to, so Love has got to decide if he is content with being relegated to 3 point specialist status.

He has enough leverage with his impending free agent status to tell everyone involved how he can be used more effectively and have them actually listen. Things are only going to change if he makes them change.
Or he could be a good teammate.

I mean, if the cavs were struggling sure, raise some hell. They ain't though. They're playing really well. Why rock the boat? Players and coaches are not nearly so reactionary as fans.
 
Then he needs to say something about it to the coach, and if he won't listen the media to shame Blatt into it.

Love has a ton of leverage right now with the team on how he is being used. He could walk at the end of the year, and that fucks up everything Lebron thinks he's building.

Make everyone involved start including you in ways beyond being the league's highest paid floor spacer or threaten to leave. If Lebron has a fit tell him to have fun winning titles on his own with TT clogging up the floor for him.

Lebron's not going to play any different unless forced to, so Love has got to decide if he is content with being relegated to 3 point specialist status.

He has enough leverage with his impending free agent status to tell everyone involved how he can be used more effectively and have them actually listen. Things are only going to change if he makes them change.

But from what we know of Love, this simply isn't his style. He'll put his head down, and do as he's told... He's a trooper, if anything, that's for sure.

But again, we're still left with the fact that he's simply being misused and it seems obvious to everyone except the coaching staff.

We're winning yes, and Love is certainly contributing; but I think the very fact that we've been so successful is what is masking this underlying problem keeping the Cavaliers from having a much more dynamic offense.
 
Lebron neutered Bosh in much the same way. Totally transformed what he was from Toronto in the same way we have seen happen to Love.

Not true -- it's a lot more complicated. Bosh took just 2.1% of his shots from 3 in his first year in Miami, and 4.2% from 3 in his second year (the first championship year). It wasn't until his last year in Miami that Bosh started taking a really significant share of his shots (over 10%) from 3. In contrast, Love is taking 40% (!!) of his shots from 3 this year. 40% -- that's more than Dirk Nowitzki. No comparison to Bosh's early years in Miami, Love is taking proportionally like 10 to 20 times more 3s than Bosh did.

Of course Love was already a 3-point guy before he came here. It's also true that a lot of Bosh's shots from inside the arc were jumpers -- when he was open he was an very high-percentage shooter from the midrange, and he is so long he could always get that shot off. But that was part of his game in Toronto too.
 
We're winning yes, and Love is certainly contributing; but I think the very fact that we've been so successful is what is masking this underlying problem keeping the Cavaliers from having a much more dynamic offense.

We're winning but not as much as we were a couple of weeks ago. We're only 8-5 over the last month (since the winning streak ended on February 6th) and I think we're just .500 against playoff teams.
 
But again, we're still left with the fact that he's simply being misused and it seems obvious to everyone except the coaching staff.

Actually, Blatt thought the team took too many threes in the Atlanta game. ...LeBron, however, disagreed. Methinks LeBron is a large reason as to why Kevin's being used the way he is. LeBron has already said "threes and layups"--he doesn't believe the mid-range FG is worth as much:
Threes and layups are a great way to win basketball games,” he said. “In between shots are low-percentage shots in our league. We’d love to get more points in the paint. We want more points in the paint than from 3s. Some games present different challenges.”
I've seen this philosophy in how Kevin sets up lately, too. He'll be just inside the arc, receive the ball, then step back behind the arc and launch the three instead of going for the mid-range.
 
Mfw love is shooting 45% from three since the lakers and gets shit on for taking threes.

Btw that's the equivalent of 68% on 2pt fgs.
 
Actually, Blatt thought the team took too many threes in the Atlanta game. ...LeBron, however, disagreed. Methinks LeBron is a large reason as to why Kevin's being used the way he is. LeBron has already said "threes and layups"--he doesn't believe the mid-range FG is worth as much:

I've seen this philosophy in how Kevin sets up lately, too. He'll be just inside the arc, receive the ball, then step back behind the arc and launch the three instead of going for the mid-range.

I don't disagree with James at all actually. But Love is more than capable of scoring in the paint and has a really good post up game. Love taking 10 of 11 of his shots behind the arc is ridiculous.

And when I say coaching staff, I'm not necessarily confining that to Blatt.
 
Mfw love is shooting 45% from three since the lakers and gets shit on for taking threes.

Btw that's the equivalent of 68% on 2pt fgs.

I'm definitely not shitting on Love for shooting. I'm saying the Cavaliers really should diversify our shot selection to include more of the post.

James wants to reduce midrange jumpers; okay great, analytics supports this. But you need variety in your offense. Love should be playing in the post as well as beyond the arc.
 
I think @Jscc 's point is that in a Kevin Love / Paul Millsap matchup, Love is at a marked advantage. It was not the correct coaching decision to have him exclusively perched at the 3-point line.

That was a mistake, by any measure.

Love should have been all over the floor, including the post. He's simply being misused, and in a big way.

Totally agree. I really don't know why we refuse to play him at the elbow where he has proven to be effective and would be even more so given the three point shooters we have on our roster.
 
Love is launching 8.1 threes per contest in his last seven games. His highest rate of threes taken was last season in Minnesota when he shot 6.6 a game, and that was along with the inside touches he received. No matter what the statistics suggest, Love is not in agreement on the big-man long distance tag.


“I heard some people calling me that but I know I’m not a stretch-four,” Love told NEOMG. “I’m a post player that can shoot. Right now I’m just doing what I’m called to do. For good, bad or indifferent, I’m playing my role and doing what’s asked of me. Tonight, I stayed out on the perimeter.”



===

Thoughts? Opinions?
 
Love is launching 8.1 threes per contest in his last seven games. His highest rate of threes taken was last season in Minnesota when he shot 6.6 a game, and that was along with the inside touches he received. No matter what the statistics suggest, Love is not in agreement on the big-man long distance tag.


“I heard some people calling me that but I know I’m not a stretch-four,” Love told NEOMG. “I’m a post player that can shoot. Right now I’m just doing what I’m called to do. For good, bad or indifferent, I’m playing my role and doing what’s asked of me. Tonight, I stayed out on the perimeter.”



===

Thoughts? Opinions?
Well with the way he's being used currently he definitely is a stretch four. Love would be correct though if he was still playing in Minny.
 

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