Cleveland Cavaliers: Kevin Love needs to be featured more than vs the Magic

The Cleveland Cavaliers dropped their first game of the season, on the road, against the Orlando Magic, 94-85.

Game one of 82 is in the books for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the defense that caused the Cavaliers problems in this one. They really struggled shooting the ball. According to ESPN.com’s official box score, the Cavs shot just 37.1% from the field and 26.5% from three.

While the Cavs had really good balance on offense, only two of the nine guys who played had less than nine shot attempts, they should rely on their best player, Kevin Love, more.

Second-year point guard Collin Sexton led the way with 15 shot attempts, he only made five of those attempts, however. If Sexton is going to lead the team in shot attempts on a consistent basis, he has to knock more of them down.

Jordan Clarkson is a well-known shot searcher. Last night was no different as he fired up 12 attempts. However, he shot it miserably, only making two of those 12 attempts.

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Tristan Thompson and Larry Nance Jr. also had more attempts than Love as they let it fly 11 times each. Thompson was fantastic and arguably the Cavs best player last night. He knocked in eight of his 11 attempts and finished the game with a team-high 16 points. The aggressiveness he showed offensively in the preseason appears to have carried over to the regular season and it appears he could be in line for a great year. Nance Jr. only made four of his 11 attempts and one out of five from three.

Love finally checks in at fifth on the team with 10 shot attempts. While he missed a shot or two that he probably shouldn’t, he still managed to shoot 40% from the field, which is better than the team average for the night.

He also appeared to be a little hesitant to let it fire from deep, which is a very important aspect of his game and is a very big part of what makes him so dynamic on the offensive side of the floor.

Throughout the fourth quarter, the Cavs did try to get Love isolated on the low block on a few occasions but they weren’t all that successful in getting the ball to him. When they did get it to him, he looked to pass quite a bit, which is fine, but the Cavs need their best and most dynamic offensive player looking to score first.

The Cavs also ran a lot of dribble handle-off action with Nance or Thompson facilitating. It would be smart for coach Beilein to get Love in that action as he is a proven, capable outside threat. It adds another dimension to the offense instead of essentially having a guaranteed roll with Thompson. Love would have the option to read the defense and either roll after delivering the handoff, or pop out to the three-point line.

If coach Beilein insists on having Thompson facilitating that action, Love needs to be spotted up on the opposite wing or corner. When the guard comes off of that handoff, and Thompson is rolling, Thompson’s defender has to hedge on the ball handler, which would put the backside defender in a tough situation. With Love spotted up in the opposite corner or on the opposite wing, the help side defender, which is Love’s defender, has a decision to make. He either helps on the Thompson roll leaving Love open for a spot-up three, or he stays with Love, leaving the middle of the floor open in hopes that Thompson’s man is a good enough defender to hedge and get back to the rolling big man. Or, Thompson’s defender doesn’t hedge and it allows the ball handler to come off the dribble hand-off with a wide-open look.

Either decision is fine by coach Beilein on who he has facilitating the dribble handoff action, but he needs to do it with Kevin Love in mind.

Going back to his days as the head coach at the University of Michigan, coach Beilein’s offense had a penchant for highlighting guard play. If one game is any indication, that appears to be the case in the pros. Again, that is fine, but when your best player is a big-man, you need to run the offense through him. That doesn’t necessarily mean Love has the be option one in every play. As outlined above, he can be a secondary or even a tertiary option, but he needs to be an option on every play. Just having him as an option opens up the floor more for everyone else because he is such a threat from all three levels on the floor.

If the Cavaliers do want to compete this season, they need Kevin Love to be the primary option on the offensive end of the floor. Ideally, he needs to have 15-20 shot attempts per night, rather than the 10 he got up against the Orlando Magic. The Cavs showed they can compete with a team that has playoff aspirations this season, but the lulls they had throughout the game that continued to cause them to fall in a hole can’t happen. Love is someone who can put a stop to those offensive lulls as he’s a proven scorer in the NBA.