Love's beef was with the official. He and the officials were going at it for like 3-4 possessions for different reasons. The refs were letting Birch pretty much do whatever he wanted all night to both Love and Allen as he was just playing harder and being aggressive and that last play Love felt he got pushed, the ref basically threw him the ball flippantly as if to say "play on and shut up" and that was how Love responded.
I picked up on it in real time.
That's not an excuse for how he compromised what the young guys were working their asses off to do. He took their legs out from under them on those possessions and that last flip resulting in the 3 was the white flag from their "leader".
You can literally see Garland like "what do I do here?"
The most frustrating thing for me, is I've been defending him and quantifying his presence/leadership after he basically got half the season off to just be a cheerleader and this right here is the kind of shit that can undo any and all leadership that you try to show some young impressionable aspiring professionals.
They went down by 10 early to a recent NBA Champion who were fighting tooth and nail and make the playoffs, and they fought back with contributions from guys like Broderic Thomas and Dean Wade finally seeing a break in the clouds from recent funk/DNPs and in the middle of that, he did this over the course of 4-5 possessions that completely threw the competitive balance in the game.
In the big picture, we were leadership void allowing for Drummond-KPJ locker positions and sweatshirt subliminal messages to fester and undermine a group of individuals growing and improving collectively, and the return of Love and Delly seemed to offer stability and direction for the young guys despite his declining play.
I'm willing to look past a lot off the court as long as you step between the lines and give it everything. I hated seeing that last night and if I were his teammate, I wouldn't trust or respect that. Don't do that publicly and then apologize privately. Be accountable and address it because the optics of it have all of your current teammates being ridiculed and measured against the past championship team as if they aren't worth your effort or respect
(and right on cue, Garland says he's going to get a better understanding of this on twitter)
Culture my ass