People criticizing Love tonight need to understand two things.
1. Blatt didn't put the ball in Love's hands. Yes, Love got more shots but so did Smith, Shumpert, and Dellavedova. Those three guards combined for 52 total shots. This was an experiment in ball-handling duties. Kevin bought into the plan and played his role.
2. In spite of that, Kevin's numbers were par for the course vs. David West, averaging 18.4 points and 11.8 rebounds. Kevin had 17 points and 10 rebounds. I don't know what it is about West but Kevin doesn't consistently put up big numbers against him.
Onto Houston.
He's a power forward, how do you "put" the ball in his hands? Kevin still has to get open, if he doesn't, guys are going to move the ball elsewhere.
Do people really think David Blatt is stupid? You can question his rotations, his offensive scheme, etc, but I think David Blatt understands in a game without LeBron and Kyrie, he fully understands Kevin has to be a pivotal part of the offense.
Going into this game, I knew we'd lose, but I thought Kevin would score 30 points. Because he's Kevin Love! Whether he shot the ball well, or not, I don't care. To me, it's very telling in a game like this, he could only get 17, and he had to fight and claw just to get those 17 points.
I am not mad at Kevin, I don't think he's not trying out there. I see him fighting to get rebounds and working his tail off on defense.
To me, it's sad more than anything. When you see Louis Scola pushing and abusing him, that's when you must say "damn, this guy is just not right".
Bashing him shouldn't be done. You should bash a player if he clearly is not playing hard, or playing selfishly.
But people should be very concern about Kevin. Here's to hoping he proves me wrong, and starts tearing it up.