Cassity14
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I think people are glossing over Cosmo's more nuanced point; that being, Kevin Love is giving up way way too much on defense. I totally agree with his point about Horford; he got dominated.
At some point in the season, David Blatt has to start coaching Kevin Love to at least try to defend opposing players. If this isn't possible, then we'll need to expend assets and resources (read: Dion Waiters) to get a rim protecting big to cover up Kevin's deficiencies.
While I agree with this notion that Kevin Love has been awful defensively, I don't think it's coming as a result of anything we didn't see coming.
The Cavs, as a team, have been awful defensively. Not only do they often lack effort, they still can be seen not understanding the scheme. Andy often switches for no reason, the guard at the top is often caught in no man's land when defending a PnR, the weak side wing is often not getting a proper close out, etc.
The argument for Kevin Love defensively was that he's an adequate positional defender. He doesn't surrender very good position on a regular 1v1 basis. No, he's not going to block shots, and no, we definitely don't ever want to see him as the last line of defense against a player with a head of steam. Unfortunately, schematic breakdowns have resulted in both of these situations happening a lot more than they should. Robin Lopez comes to mind.
Is he being scored on when in isolation? Sure, but at the same time, he's often being scored on from inefficient spots of the floor and/or by players who are simply going to score. Horford hit some very tough turnaround hook shots last night. Aldridge did the same when they were matched up. What's important to remember is that Kevin often matches these situations with his own offense in addition to the passing and spacing he provides without the ball.
When Kevin Love is playing defense on the fast break, he's awful. He commits too soon and often commits to a guy who's already drawn a defender - resulting in an easy dump off for another player to slam home an uncontested dunk. That may get better and it may not. However, the situation in which it happens, careless turnovers, will go down in frequency as the year goes on.
Kevin Love is NOT Chris Bosh, who can save a defensive breakdown because of his versatility; Kevin Love is the type who's going to get abused as a result of these breakdowns. I believe you and I were both on here in the summer laughing at the shit people were saying about Bosh. He looks pretty good now, eh?
Actually, Love's defensive deficiencies are something LeBron has to get used to as well. He's used to guys like Birdman, Bosh, etc. being able to cover up when he gets burned. That's not the case anymore. LeBron isn't able to jump into every passing lane with reckless abandon on this team; the bigs behind him don't possess the shot blocking ability or quickness (Thompson has the quickness to switch for periods of time) to constantly cover up lapses on the wing or at the top.
Tl;dr: Kevin Love is getting highlighted by teams breaking down the Cavs as a team because they haven't fully yet understood the scheme, how to properly run shooters off the line, etc. It'll look better in time. Hell, it looked a lot better against Atlanta, especially early on.