NBA Finals: The Love Problem?
The Cleveland Cavaliers made the NBA Finals into a series Wednesday with a statement 120-90 home victory against the Golden State Warriors. After being dominated in (nearly) every facet for the first two games of the series, the Cavaliers flipped the script on the Warriors in Game 3. It was a dramatic reversal of events, and there was one discernible personnel difference that the media has predictably latched onto as the culprit: the absence of Kevin Love.
When Kevin Love exited Game 2 due to an inadvertent Harrison Barnes elbow to the head, the Cavaliers were being routed in both the game and the series, and not much changed for the remainder of that contest, however, a great deal has changed since then. But is Love really the culprit, and if he is, what does it say about his role with the Cavaliers for both the long and short-term?
The narrative being pushed by the media is that Kevin Love, by nearly every metric a putrid defender, is such a liability he compromises Cleveland’s entire game plan as they attempt to mask this deficiency. But this narrative ignores Love isn’t the only minus defender to start for Cleveland, although Irving had a much better first two games, at least on the defensive end.
The alternative view of Love’s impact asserts his efficency on the offensive end and as a rebounder make up for his defensive shortcomings, and his absence from the lineup has as a reverse impact on Cleveland’s offense. Even with Love’s numbers being down since he was traded from Minnesota. This is certainly the viewpoint LeBron James subscribed to prior to the Finals; it would likely be very interesting to hear what he thinks now.
It is, hypothetically, a simple matter to determine how factual both Kevin Love theories are by calculating the impact his absence has on both sides of the ball. The problem with this method is that Love has missed 22 games since Kelly Olynyk played tug of war with his arm. That is a relatively small sample size, but large enough for trends to emerge.
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/02/what_channel_is_the_cleveland_2.html
(Tony Dejak/AP Photo)
The Cleveland Cavaliers averaged 104.3 points per game in the regular season, good for eighth in the NBA, and second in the Eastern Conference. But their real strength this season, including in the 77 games that featured Kevin Love this year, was defensively, as the 98.3 points per game they yielded was good for fourth in the league, and they ended the season with a point differential that was also the fourth-best mark in the league.
So at least some of the impact of Kevin Love’s potential impact when he doesn’t play could be determined by comparing these statistics with the 22-game sample of the games that he has missed over the past two seasons (an admittedly flawed metric since these Cavaliers aren’t the same team as last year’s addition, but the sample gets chopped down to six games otherwise).
In those 22 games, the Cavaliers scored 102.1 points per game; the 2.1-point drop is comparable to dropping from the Rockets offense this season to Clippers’—not too steep a drop. The defensive change is more dramatic, as they surrender a suffocating 94.9 points per game when Love sits, which would push them up to the second-best mark in the league.
So their offense drops off ever so slightly, and their good defense gets even better. These results are notable, but they don’t explain why Love is being scapegoated as the problem that is holding the Cavaliers from defeating a historic Warriors team. The numbers do not support the assertion that the Cavaliers have been better over the course of these two seasons without Kevin Love, and that he needs to be traded to purge them of their ills.
They may, however, suggest that the Cavs may benefit from a lineup change for this particular series. The Warriors have been who the Cavs have undoubtedly set their true sights on ever since they surged to a 67-15 record last season. And the 13 games that these two teams have played the past two years suggest that Golden State’s favorite player should be Kevin Love.
In his last six (well, let’s say five and a half) games against Golden State, Love has averaged 11.3 points and 10.3 rebounds, holding up his end of the rebounding bargain but definitely not proving that he is essential to the Cavs’ offense. But the numbers are even grimmer for Love when you look at the total numbers for Cleveland when he plays and sits against the Warriors.
http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2016/01/cleveland_cavaliers_not_intere.html (Joshua Gunter/cleveland.com)In those six games with Love, the Warriors have scored 107.7 points a game, while Cleveland has averaged a putrid 91.8; both of those numbers are sub-76ers stats, and they be the second-worst defense and easily the worst offense in the NBA if they played like that for a full season. It would be too much of a stretch to suggest that Love alone is the reason for these averages, but in seven games (essentially a series) against the Warriors without Love, the Cavs have netted 98.4 points a game, still an awful number, but given up only 99.1; against the mighty Warriors, the Cavs defense has fielded a defense that would’ve been top 5 in the league, and the narrow point differential reflects their close record in those games, now 3-4, when Love is unavailable, as opposed to their 1-5 mark when he plays.
So they go from league-worst numbers to going toe to toe with the Warriors. They still aren’t scoring effectively, but the Warriors, even with their lightning pace, are one of the best defensive teams in the league, so they tend to make that happen. And the one key difference in these games has been whether or not Kevin Love was sitting on the bench.
This is not to say that Cleveland should immediately start making calls to find Love a new home, or even that they should scrap them from their game plan whenever they play the Warriors. He is still an All-Star talent, and he has shown flashes this year of the skill set that attracted Cleveland to him in the first place. But Cleveland is in the Finals now, and against a truly historic opponent; potential isn’t enough. When you spurn more money in order to play with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, it’s because you want to know how it feels to sit out and the game not fall apart, but if Love really wants a title, he might have to get used to that feeling.
James Caleb Saffo
I
am a University of Georgia graduate from Douglasville, GA. I am a fan
of Atlanta and UGA sports, which also means that I am a masochist. I
hope that you enjoy my articles, because I am truly doing what I love.
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