Cavs Player of the Month for December: Kevin Love

Let’s hear it for the old, yet savvy veteran of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a one Kevin Love, for earning December’s Player of the Month for the young team. As the elder of these Cavs, Love certainly led the way this past month. He was spectacular in his play. The rejuvenated Love is playing the game he loves like we haven’t seen in several seasons.

Love was brought here to Cleveland in 2014 to help LeBron James out to win an NBA championship. That finally happened in 2016. Since that time, Love has stuck it out with the Cavs. Part of that is because the team owes him a lot of money and his contract is too expensive for many other NBA teams to take on.

This season he’s been coming off the bench as the team has gone with a three-big man frontcourt. He’s really taken a liking to his new role on the team. He was getting 15-to-20 minutes in most games to start the season, but now with a rash of injuries and COVID-19 concerns he was pushed into the starting lineup again a bit, and in plenty of other instances, has still played a bunch off the bench. Any way you slice it, Love has been very good this last month of December.

Love was outstanding in December, and was the Cavs Player of the Month during that span.

In 15 games, he averaged just 17.9 points a game. In the last four of those he averaged 26 points, including a 35-point night in a close loss down the stretch versus the Atlanta Hawks on New Year’s Eve.

He’s been firing the three-pointers as well. In these last four games he put up 45 three-point attempts and made 24 of them, including this one game in January, a close W over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday. That’s a very impressive 53 percent. He was also pulling down the rebounds. He had double figures in that department in four games and had nine boards in two others.

He had some tremendous efforts this past month. In an early December matchup against the Miami Heat, Love went six-for-eight from beyond the three-point arc for a nice 22 points in only 21 minutes of playing time. In a game against the Minnestoa Timberwolves, the elder Cav grabbed 13 boards and went seven-for-seven from the charity stripe and added 18 points.

In the last four games of the month he was even better overall, too. He went for 22 points and 24 points in two games and then 35 points in the closing game this month against the Hawks.

It’s not just the points and boards that are helping this team, it’s also his veteran and steadying presence that is helping his team cope with the recent struggles as they had been hit hard by COVID and injuries. The recent knee injury to one of Love’s favorite teammates, Ricky Rubio, has really affected this young team, but Love is trying to steady the team and has elevated his own game in the last week.

The best part this year about Love is he genuinely looks like he really wants to play for his team. There has been a lot of speculation the last few seasons on his desire to be on this team. That talk has been tempered somewhat this year.

Look for this new calendar year for Love to be just as good as this last part of 2021 was. Brought here to be a supporting cast member to the old LeBron James teams, Love’s now leading the way for this young franchise.