Cavaliers: Three goals for Kevin Love for post-All-Star break

Post-All-Star goal #1 for Love: Average 20.0 points/game

With young pieces such as Collin Sexton, Kevin Porter Jr. and Darius Garland being the primary focus it seems with the Cavs rebuilding, Love’s play has sort of flown under-the-radar.

He’s been incredibly efficient this year, by and large, though. He’s hitting 38.0 percent on 6.8 three-point attempts per game this year, and in his last 10 games, he’s hit 41.9 percent from deep, as noted by NBA.com.

With Drummond’s huge presence and touch inside, Love should be a key beneficiary and I’d expect him to have more open deep balls.

On “open” three-pointers this season, of which the nearest defender is between four and six feet away, Love has a robust hit rate of 39.6 percent on a 26.5 percent frequency, according to NBA.com’s shot tracking data.

Drummond as a screener for Love in some instances off-ball will be an interesting wrinkle for Beilein and company to utilize, too, similarly to Tristan Thompson‘s presence in those instances, but Drummond is even more difficult for opposing defenders to navigate around.

It’s not just the triples for Love, though.

As Fear The Sword’s Jackson Flickinger recently highlighted, Love has been tremendous in the mid-range area this season, and I’d look for him to maintain his effectiveness in the mid-post as well.

Throughout this year, he’s been money off the window from 15 to 17 feet, often off of quick jabs, and I’d expect Drummond’s presence inside to enable the Cleveland Cavaliers to get Love cross-matched from time to time against 5’s, which should lead to hard closeouts. Cue the Austin Carr “Love Bird” voice there.

Conversely, with opponents at times having to double down on Drummond, it could lead to cross-matches for Love against smaller defenders, too, on the weak side, along with when Love is a roller slipping or posting when wings/guards are switched on to him. In a close loss last week at the Thunder, Love had 20 points, seven rebounds and five assists, as noted by ESPN, and he showcased his full inside-out toolbox.

Anyway, with Love really in a nice groove this past month-and-a-half or so, a post-All-Star goal of 20.0 points per game for him seems reasonable.

Coupled with that, reaching that suggested goal would mean he’s been fully engaged game-to-game for Beilein and company, which wouldn’t hurt his potential trade value for this summer, after all, nor would Love hitting this next goal.