For Kevin Love, as with the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers, this season has been up-and-down. He’s averaging 16.7 points per game on the season, but he’s scored 13 points or fewer in three of their last four games, including just 10 points on 4-for-12 shooting in the Cavs’ Wednesday night home loss to the defending champion San Antonio Spurs.
Love says he’s still trying to get comfortable in the Cavs’ offense, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com:“It’s come to a point where I’m just trying to find myself in this offense,” Love said after scoring a season-low 10 points against the Spurs and attempting just one shot in the fourth quarter. “It’s almost related to when you come into the league; usually the guys that dominate the ball so much tend to learn a lot quicker than a guy like myself, a big man. So I’m just trying to find different spots in the offense.
“I’ll just say we’re 10 games in, we’re looking at different stuff. I need to find myself. I think everybody knew coming in that we’d have to sacrifice, but at some point we’re going to need some low-post scoring and some outside shooting.”
So far this season, Love is attempting just 5.1 shots per game, his lowest since his second year in the NBA, in 2009-10. It’s been an adjustment process for everybody on the team — Love and Kyrie Irving making sacrifices in their individual numbers and LeBron James having patience with his younger teammates while everybody learns David Blatt’s offense.Blatt expressed confidence that Love will get more comfortable in his system:
“We run specific stuff for Kevin and for other guys,” Blatt said after practice Thursday. “You know, earlier in the season when he was scoring the ball better, it was the same offense. So I’m not sure that it’s as much related to that as just the game flow and situational things.
“But we want to help Kev. He needs to be involved and he needs to involve himself, and it’s our job to help him.”Eventually, Love and the Cavs will figure things out. The team is too talented not to.