Kevin Love Had an Amazing Performance in Game 1 Against Boston
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The Eastern Conference Finals started exactly how we all predicted: The Cavs had the lead for the entire game. There was a little rust with the Cavs’ three points shooting early on, but it didn’t matter. Boston looked physically and emotionally drained from their Game 7 performance on Monday.
Now, I’d say LeBron’s dominance was the biggest story of last night. He finished with 38 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. He even shot well from the free-throw line by hitting nine of his 11 attempts. While we shouldn’t take his numbers for granted, this is just what we can expect out of LeBron in the post season. He knows if he doesn’t preform well then there’s no way the team can win. LeBron carries that burden like it’s Isaiah Thomas hanging on him and he still dominates.
With that being said, Kevin Love was the player who really stepped it up for the Cavs last night. He finished with 32 points and shot 6/9 from the three-point line in a night nobody else on the team could. Love also ended the game with a team-high of 12 rebounds.
Kevin Love is first Cav not named LeBron to have 30 points and 10 rebounds in a playoff game since Brad Daugherty in 1992.
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) May 18, 2017
Ty Lue took a lot of the blame for Kevin Love’s diminished role early on in these playoffs. Ty Lue’s reasoning for this was they had not featured him much on offense due to the matchups he was facing. Love averaged 13.8 points and 9.9 shots per game in the first two rounds, both career lows.
Heading into this series against Boston though, the matchups seemed to favor Love. The Cavs run a lot of pick and roll on offense to try and get the defense to switch. They do this to try and expose a certain mismatch on the opposing team. With someone switching onto Love that was either too small to handle him in the post or too slow to stay in front of him, it offered an excellent opportunity for him to capitalize. By finishing with 32 points, I’d say he was able to take advantage.
Since everyone besides LeBron and Tristan were struggling early on, this put a lot of pressure on Love to preform. He stepped up and had a breakout performance. These mismatches should continue for the rest of this series as well. If Kevin can continue with performances like this, the Cavs will be heading into the finals at 12-0.
Photo Creds: USA Today,
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