Browns name Kevin O’Connell new quarterbacks coach
January 31, 2015Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott got a Buckeyes Championship Tattoo
February 1, 2015Cleveland Cavaliers (29-20) 106
Minnesota Timberwolves (8-39) 90
Saturday night was the event for which everyone around the NBA has been with mild interest for months: the not-so-heralded return of Kevin Love to Minnesota. The Minnesota Timberwolves production team or PR team or marketing staff turned a dozen or so heads this week with a hype video for #TheReturn, but of former Timberwolf Mike Miller instead of departed All-Star Love.
Love received some boos during the pregame introductions and during the first quarter, but those mellowed throughout the game. To the Timberwolves’ credit, they played a montage of vintage Love moments and listed Love’s accomplishments during his stay in Minnesota during a break in the first half, which received a halfhearted cheer. And his feats during his stint in Minnesota are nothing to sneeze at: Love ranks sixth in Timberwolves career games played, fifth in minutes played, second in total rebounds behind only Kevin Garnett, and third in points.
So it was slightly baffling to hear the boos for Love, one of the best players in Minnesota Timberwolves history by any measure. It’s hardly Love’s fault that during his tenure the organization won an embarrassing 25.5 games per year; drafted only one above average player that they kept (Nikola Pekovic in 2008!); squandered picks on Johnny Flynn, Ricky Rubio, Wesley Johnson, and Derrick Williams; and allowed people like Flip Saunders and David Kahn to reach positions of power that require decision-making abilities. Granted, Cavaliers fans can’t pretend to have the moral high ground when it comes to welcoming home former franchise players, so I will now eat my own shoe.
The Cavs ended up escaping with a 105-90 victory, but let’s go behind the box score to see how they did it and how Love fared in his return to ‘Sota.
14 & 17 – Kevin Love stuck it to those booing, usually polite Minnesotans with a 14 point and 17 rebound performance on 6-of-14 shooting. Take that, you wannabe Canadians! Actually, it was a fairly ho-hum performance. Without looking at the box score, one would assume Love had a bad night. Then you take a peek, see that he had 17 rebounds and was relatively efficient, and do a double take to make sure that clear liquid you’re drinking is actually water. Seventeen rebounds have a huge impact on a game by terminating possessions of an opponent fighting to come back (Love had 11 defensive rebounds), and extending possessions when your team isn’t in an offensive rhythm (Love had six offensive rebounds).
33 – Meanwhile, Andrew Wiggins—the chief trade piece that allowed the Cavaliers to acquire Love—had 33 points, a career high. Wiggins was thoroughly impressive on the offensive end of the floor, going 14-of-25 in 43 minutes, including 3-of-4 on three-point field goal attempts. He flaunted his exceptional ability to put the ball on the floor, penetrate the defense, and finish in the $$ zone. Wiggins was proficient everywhere on the court, except for the midrange areas, and deadly in the paint—going 7-of-9 in the restricted area and 2-of-3 in the paint (non-RA), as shown in the shot chart below from NBA.com.
Andrew Wiggins is going to be a great basketball player. He’s too athletic to fail, and has responded surprisingly well to the task of buoying a lousy team. He also seems intent on tormenting Cavs fans for his entire career. But don’t buy into it—don’t go down that road! It won’t make you happy! Sure, Love never dazzles. But he was brought into Cleveland to put up double-doubles, and his 27 double-doubles are the sixth most in the NBA via NBA.com. Retrofitting him for the Cavalier offense alongside Kyrie Irving and LeBron James has led to inconsistent offense performances from Love, but he will figure it out. Love more naturally complements James and Irving while Wiggins would have been a redundant component, and Love is still a world-class rebounder. Rebounds aren’t sexy, but Love gives the Cavs the best chance to make a deep playoff run this season because of his abilities. So don’t fantasize about Wiggins wearing a Cavalier jersey and doing mean things to opponents in the lane and feeding you strawberries as the two of you laugh and sip margaritas on an exotic beach in Bermuda or Thailand. Again, it WON’T MAKE YOU HAPPY!
36, 6, and 5 – Meanwhile, soon-to-be-great player Wiggins had a front row seat to a show put on by the long-been-great and still reigning best basketball player in world LeBron James. Yes, I can bitch and moan every night in this space about how his 85.7 percent unassisted field goal percentage on Saturday night is not the utopian vision of team basketball. But it’s better to sit back, take a deep breath, and remember to make the most of watching the best basketball player play for my team. It’s frustrating to watch the Cavs offense bog down and for James to have no choice but to seize control of the offense—and in so doing further disrupt the offensive rhythm. But there are certain games that teams aren’t supposed to win, and great players turn those L’s into W’s like a sixth grader fudging his report card before showing his parents. In a night where many Cavs fans tortured themselves with fantasies about Wiggins, it was hard to remember that the best basketball player in the world plays for the Cavaliers right now, as he put on a kinetic seminar for the young’un. James carried the Cavs to victory by scoring every way possible in nearly 40 minutes (posting a plus-minus of +25), nonchalantly picking up six rebounds and five assists along the way, and looking mildly annoyed that he had to try so hard against the lowly Timberwolves. Few fans have the privilege to ever have the best in the world at a certain occupation on their team, and Cavs fans have that privilege for 82-100 nights this season. LeBron James can do things like the hellacious dunk shown in the Vine below that few mortals have ever been able to do.1 Remember to just enjoy the damn ride while it lasts.
1 – Lorenzo Brown blew what may be his only chance at history. With four seconds remaining in the game—FOUR—Brown scored his only point of the game by connecting on the second of two free throws. Had Brown had the fortitude to miss the second free throw, he would have become only the fourth player to play 47 or more minutes and have zero points, joining only Danny Ainge, Horace Grant, and Dennis Rodman—who were all great players.2 Granted, he’s still in exclusive company (Darrell Walker is the only player to play more than 47 minutes and have exactly one point), but Brown still blew it. It’s like he got bumped up another tax bracket with that free throw. ZERO is always cooler than one. Way to choke and sink that free throw.
3 – So with Brown somehow scoring only one point despite playing nearly the entire game,3 and the Timberwolves front office set on losing as many games as possible, shouldn’t the Cavs have dominated without LeBron having to assert his alpha status? The truth is: not really. The Timberwolves have some great pieces, and while the Cavs didn’t have their best game of the winning streak, players like Wiggins, Nikola Pekovic, Gorgui Dieng, and Thaddeus Young give teams fits with their physical play. The Cavs were able to overcome the Wolves’ best effort to become only the third team this season to win every game of the dreaded “four games in five nights” series that every team faces. This is an impressive feat, as demonstrated by Minnesota’s effort Saturday night. But the Cavs prevailed, and the winning streak lives to see another day with the Philadelphia 76ers coming to the Q on Monday night.
12 Comments
Except for Tristan, team looked generally tired and disinterested until LeBron put on Stern Daddy look with about 10 minutes to play. As soon as he took out the belt Wiggins and the rest of them stopped the giggling and ran back to their rooms, like they should have in the second quarter.
I know that the schedule is a grind, that Kyrie probably needs a mental break, but don’t get why Shumpert was channeling his inner Knick, throwing lazy passes that got picked off and defending so passively. This guy just came back and is not exactly logging heavy minutes.
Thought Love was worse than ho-hum after the first quarter, less than his stats, considering that given the ‘Wolves roster he didn’t have a lot of trouble getting those rebounds and very few of his clanging shots were contested. At one point he tried a 6 foot bank shot that didn’t even get rim. He looked nervous, still stuck in his shooting funk, or both. But Tristan looks exactly like a big playing for a contract. Last year his energy sometimes went AWOL for whole weeks. Right now he wants to eat every rebound.
And I think about Wiggins with no apologies. The decision probably had to be made but didn’t think it was a no-brainer then and still don’t. I’m rooting for him, because he seems like a good kid who was put in the most awkward position of any first overall in memory. Hope Minnesota doesn’t screw him up with bad habits on a losing team, much like Kyrie. I said a few months ago that he looked to me a lot like Ron Harper before he shredded his knee. Now that looks like his floor, not his ceiling.
Cavs outrebounded the Wolves drastically. Team needs Love’s rebounding, passing and floor-spacing more than anything. Sure, Minnesota has the young star, but don’t tell me they’re a better basketball team this season compared to last. its to the point where I literally feel bad for any fans who are focusing on his scoring output at this point. This isn’t a fantasy league.
Another positive review for the Cavaliers way to go!
Great win for the Cavaliers LBJ laid the smack down went it counted. The fourth game in five nights it was clear the Cavaliers as a whole weren’t into this game. That and I’m sure they took Minnesota for granted. Plus the young T-Wolves had the whole “Love returning” thing to get geeked over. In the end the Cavaliers extended their win streak to ten in a row.
For those people who will continue to comment on Andrew Wiggins lets examine the boxscore shall we. 43 minutes played the most by any player to take the court, 33 pts on 14 makes on 25 attempts, 3 free throws attempted 2 made, 3-4 3 pointers, 1 reb, 1 ast, 4 stl, 1 TO and 1 foul. Looks to me like a rookie who was just making shots while taking the most for his team. In fact he tied LBJ for the most attempts for either team. The kid is learning and growing and still has an unbelievable future but lets not make this game out to be anything more then what it really was huh? Maybe? He wasn’t involved in passing, rebounding or defense.
Tristan Thompson deserves some serious dap the way he’s been playing. Exactly they way I had hoped he would OFF THE BENCH where he always belonged. Lets also keep in mind it’s a contract year. His next deal will cost.
oh, stop it. See my comment after the Pistons game last week if you think I’m always negative about the Cavs.
“So don’t fantasize about Wiggins wearing a Cavalier jersey and doing mean things to opponents in the lane and feeding you strawberries as the two of you laugh and sip margaritas on an exotic beach in Bermuda or Thailand. ”
That’s a fantastic line. Also, could not agree more about your take on Love v. Wiggins. He wouldn’t be getting even a quarter of these touches in Cleveland playing with LeBron and Kyrie. And even though he had an absolutely amazing performance on Saturday, those types of performances are not going to be the norm for him for quite a while. I was sitting there watching that game and thinking about what a shame it was for some Cavs fans to see that. I just knew it was inviting an unreal comparison between Wiggins and Love. In the 4th quarter, LeBron showed you what is going to happen to a rookie in the playoffs… even one as talented as Andrew Wiggins.
I thought of that as well. Wiggins gave us a view of his not insignificant potential, but we’ve been viewing Love relative to some pretty lofty expectations and some are a bit unfairly down on him. Love is more what this team needs than Wiggins, and his stats should be expected to diminish because of his reduced role and just the way the team has used him. Still, he bests Wiggins in pretty much every statistical category. The real hand-wringing about Love is whether or not he’s really worth a max contract, not whether or not he was worth trading Wiggins for.
I wondered if the crowd’s negative buzz wasn’t affecting Love. I remember when LeBron came back to the Q for the first time after taking his talents to South Beach, there was this palpable bile filling the air. I hated watching the game because it just felt like that bile was coming right out of my TV and filling my home. It wasn’t as bad in Minnesota on Saturday night, but there was a negativity to the crowd that bugged me and kept me from truly enjoying the experience in much the same way. Long story short, I wonder if Love got a little overwhelmed with that and let it affect his game. He looked timid after the first quarter. Unsure of himself. I really hope he gets right against the crummy 76ers tonight.
same thoughts. If so that worries me a little – the Cavs will need him to play big under pressure and facing hostility, and 5 years in he’s never played in big NBA games so you don’t know if this is a guy who “dies a little in the moment.” I’d almost rather know that he’s scuffling now because he’s playing hurt.
That could definitely be a problem and unfortunately it’s one we won’t know until the playoffs. I do think there is a difference between booing a guy because he is crushing your favorite team versus booing a guy because you hate his guts and wish he was dead. It’s possible Love may be sensitive to the latter scenario only.
Sorry I missed it!