#1: Love’s effective field goal shooting clip of 55.0 percent
Love only played 22 games in the 2018-19 season, mostly due to toe surgery. Even with that being the case, on still most occasions, Love, along with then Tristan Thompson, was a key workhorse for then-head coach John Beilein and the Cavs.
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Even with Darius Garland and Collin Sexton often having issues getting Love the ball in low block and/or the mid-post in the first quarter of the season or so, and still at times since pre-hiatus, Love did still do pretty well. He had 16.4 points and shot 37.6 percent from three-point land in his first 30 games active in 2019-20, as documented by Basketball Reference.
Even after the mishaps, and since the head coaching change, Love has silently had a very good campaign to this point from an efficiency perspective for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
On the season, he’s had 17.6 points per game, and has had a near-career-best 55.0 percent effective field goal shooting clip.
With the injury-riddled season he had last year, I wouldn’t have expected that, either, and it had been nice to see him become more comfortable playing off Sexton, Garland, Cedi Osman and Kevin Porter Jr. as the season had been progressing.
On the year, Love has still shot 37.4 percent from three-point range on a career-high 7.0 attempts per game. Love has still been a real post presence down low, too, though, and in the mid-post/mid-range area, he’s been really efficient.
Love’s hit 60.5 percent of his attempts from 10-16 feet out in 2019-20, which is a career-best, and that’s been on his highest career frequency from that range. Plus, although it wasn’t nearly the frequency of his earlier Minnesota Timberwolves years, Love’s hit also a near-career-best from 16 feet to the three-point arc, at 46.7 percent.
There’s been some adjustment, but Love has been pretty darn reliable in most instances for the Cavs and has gotten looks to go down in a variety of ways, even with so much defensive attention.
The next stat that’s jumped out about Love’s season so far has been in the passing sense.