Game 31 | Cavs (18-12) @ Hawks (22-8) | December 30, 2014 | 7:30pm EST

[Kyrieville]

Kevin Love was once a superstar?

 

[Flight479]

This one hurts. Chicago and Wizards loss today. We really needed to hand the hawks one since all of them are in front

 

[lem_baccin]

I'm staying positive. Growing pains.

Also, we are not seeing the real Kevin Love here. He didn't suddenly forget how to play basketball. He needs to play through whatever he is going through.

Blatt needs to remember this isn't just some guy going through a shooting slump. This is one of the best power forwards in the game. Having said that, if the 4th quarter freeze-outs are due to defense, hopefully the message is being received loud and clear.

 

[Andrew]

I am a mix bag of emotions right now, I went into this game for the first time this season expecting a loss but it was much more competitive than I thought. I got to give credit to the squad for fighting back after being down 17 but at the same point, I am so frustrated the only guy that bothered to show up was Irving tonight. Granted him with a sprinkle of TT and the hustle of Harris is the only bright side, I am just flabbergasted at a wasted opportunity. Not so much wasted on the loss, like I said, I expected that (hate that feeling), but moreso on the ineffectiveness of Love. Dude was horrendous tonight and needed an excuse not to play so they came up with back spasms. I agree with the NBAtv studio crew, his offense looks painful and forced, like he isn't in the rhythm of their offensive scheme 75% of the time. It looks as if its a combination of Love not utilizing his skill set and over thinking and the immaturity of Blatt not to have offensive sets for Kevin. He seems to have the offense 1 way and plugs him in and tells him to score. He isn't putting Love in the correct position out there to succeed. Tonight, even if it still resulted in a loss, would have been a fine example of tailoring the game plan around Love. You probably knew James wasn't playing in the game at shoot around, you could have tweaked the sets to get Love in better positions.

I might be in the minority, but I am not hitting the panic button just yet. 18-13 is in no way ideal but it also isn't the end of the world. Remember, they really only have to compete with less than a handful of squads in the East. I will happily continue to take losses if I see this team finding some sort of identity out there, because this team is making the postseason and even if say a 5 seed, if they go in with some sort of similance of a more secure game plan, you still got the best player in the league on your squad and you can still win 4 series'.

 

[CavsFan005]

I am a mix bag of emotions right now, I went into this game for the first time this season expecting a loss but it was much more competitive than I thought. I got to give credit to the squad for fighting back after being down 17 but at the same point, I am so frustrated the only guy that bothered to show up was Irving tonight. Granted him with a sprinkle of TT and the hustle of Harris is the only bright side, I am just flabbergasted at a wasted opportunity. Not so much wasted on the loss, like I said, I expected that (hate that feeling), but moreso on the ineffectiveness of Love. Dude was horrendous tonight and needed an excuse not to play so they came up with back spasms. I agree with the NBAtv studio crew, his offense looks painful and forced, like he isn't in the rhythm of their offensive scheme 75% of the time. It looks as if its a combination of Love not utilizing his skill set and over thinking and the immaturity of Blatt not to have offensive sets for Kevin. He seems to have the offense 1 way and plugs him in and tells him to score. He isn't putting Love in the correct position out there to succeed. Tonight, even if it still resulted in a loss, would have been a fine example of tailoring the game plan around Love. You probably knew James wasn't playing in the game at shoot around, you could have tweaked the sets to get Love in better positions.

I might be in the minority, but I am not hitting the panic button just yet. 18-13 is in no way ideal but it also isn't the end of the world. Remember, they really only have to compete with less than a handful of squads in the East. I will happily continue to take losses if I see this team finding some sort of identity out there, because this team is making the postseason and even if say a 5 seed, if they go in with some sort of similance of a more secure game plan, you still got the best player in the league on your squad and you can still win 4 series'.

I haven't hit the panic button on our record, but I'm done with Love. No way we win paying this dude 20 million. no way in hell we can tie up that salary and build a championship squad.

I honestly can't believe Love put up 26/14 last year. That just shows you the power of playing with a shitty team, I know some people don't agree with the comparison but Jamison put up the same stats on the Wizards before we traded for him. His effort and attitude are even worse then his stats rights now

 

[stick]

A couple more free throws and a couple of less turnovers and we could have taken this one. Not a bad effort all things considered. We had to play very small ball for a large stretch of the game. Anyways, this is much better than the Detroit "game", that's for sure. Let's see where we go from here.

Onto the next one. Let's go, Cavs! Oh and ... welcome back, Kyrie.

 

[Andrew]

I haven't hit the panic button on our record, but I'm done with Love. No way we win paying this dude 20 million. no way in hell we can tie up that salary and build a championship squad.

I honestly can't believe Love put up 26/14 last year. That just shows you the power of playing with a shitty team, I know some people don't agree with the comparison but Jamison put up the same stats on the Wizards before we traded for him. His effort and attitude are even worse then his stats rights now

It's a bit premature to call the Love experiment a failure. He has to tailor his game the most out of anyone on thi squad. Sure Irving has to but he still has the ball 40% of the time. This reminds me of Bosh, everyone wanted to trade him for Amare or something and it takes some time to find a nice rhythm.

Love is too good of a player to continue to struggle, one of these games he is going to explode and find a nice pattern and it will all average out. Bosh couldn't rebound for his life in 2010 with the Heat and he made his own personal challenge and he started to become the catalyst of that squad, if he played well the team generally won. Give it more than January to say this thing with Love was ill concieved and this is all being said by me, a "bandwagoner."

 

[Benedict_Boozer]

I'm most concerned with the defense. Particularly the P&R D, teams are milking the P&R action with Kyrie/Love to death and even when Love is out teams continually go at us in P&R because our help D/rim protection is weak. On top of that because of all the switching/scrambling, our defensive rebounding sucks also because guys are out of position.

Blatt has to figure that out or we are going to continue to struggle.

 

[kovanovich]

I haven't hit the panic button on our record, but I'm done with Love. No way we win paying this dude 20 million. no way in hell we can tie up that salary and build a championship squad.

I honestly can't believe Love put up 26/14 last year. That just shows you the power of playing with a shitty team, I know some people don't agree with the comparison but Jamison put up the same stats on the Wizards before we traded for him. His effort and attitude are even worse then his stats rights now

Jamison didn't put anywhere close to those numbers with the Wiz....more like 21/9 on 53% TS in heavy minutes in 2009-10. It's not just a matter of Love putting up numbers on a bad, or average, team (and Minny was a .500 team last year) and not being able to do so on a good team. I think this goes deeper than that and I haven't seen a good explanation.