Kevin Love wants more inside touches

Kevin Love will have a lot of fun playing with LeBron James in Kyrie Irving this year. He already is.

LeBron and Irving are better than any of Love’s teammates in Minnesota, and both are willing distributors.

In time, this should go really well – offensively at least.

But there’s an adjust period, and Love is feeling its effects.

Love, via Chris Haynes of The Plain Dealer:

“My entire life I’ve played the game from inside-out,” Love explained to NEOMG. “So the more touches I can get inside to get myself going, the better. I’m not accustomed to starting out a game shooting a three, so it’s just something that I see.

“Yeah, the offense is built that way but I just have to make a conscious decision to get myself in there,” Love said. “There are a lot of times where I just find myself fading to the three-point line. For me, it’s a mentality and that’s easy to fix.

Love is an excellent 3-point shooter for his size, but what makes him stand out is his ability to score outside AND inside. To maximize his skills, the Cavaliers need him to both.

But this is what Chris Bosh was talking about. Love must change his game to complement LeBron and Irving.

Plus, David Blatt’s offense calls for a floor-stretching big.

The situation, more than Love’s skill set, is pulling him to the perimeter – and that’s OK.

The Cavaliers can’t be about maximizing Love’s skills – or LeBron’s skills or Irving’s skills. They have to be about finding the equilibrium that best serves the team, and likely, that means each of the three playing a style not perfectly tailored to him.

Love can probably stand to get more inside touches within that system, but he has to understand Cleveland putting him in ideal positions to succeed individually – while ignoring what that would mean for everyone else – shouldn’t be the goal. Everyone has to find happy mediums, and that takes time.