Cavs’ Kevin Love is having resurgent season as finisher

Throughout this season, Kevin Love has proven to have fit so well in a shift to a bench role for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After an injury-depleted season where he appeared in just 25 games in 2020-21, he’s had 14.3 points and 7.5 rebounds per contest in a reduced role with 21.9 minutes per game.

Most notably, he’s connected on a robust 39.4 percent of his 6.2 three-point attempts per contest, and we’ve seen him often provide a boost for Cleveland in the catch-and-shoot game, mixed in with some one-dribble pull-ups after getting defenders to bite on pump fakes. Pick-and-pop situations have been fruitful for him, too.

It’s been nice to see Love be seemingly fully bought into this bench role, and it’s clearly paid dividends for him and the team, particularly with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen at the 4-5. Lauri Markkanen, when healthy, as a de facto jumbo 3 offensively has been rounding into the form for the Cavaliers too, and he’s reportedly progressing in relation to a high ankle sprain he sustained roughly two weeks back.

Circling back to Love, though, while it’s been objectively a bounce-back season for him from the outside, as a rebounder, to some degree, and regarding the team dynamic, his finishing has been far better this season than in the past few years, also. That’s been good to see as well, and perhaps could carry forward into next season, if he’s around again for bench spurts.

Love’s had a resurgent season as a finisher for the Cavs.

Of course, him playing in a bench role has had some to do with it, and playmaking growth from say, Darius Garland, but we’ve seen Love take advantage of cross-matching this season at times in the low post, more than in the recent past.

That’s played some into him hitting 66.1 percent of his restricted area shot attempts this season, per NBA.com’s shooting data. He’s connected on 50.0 percent of his non-restricted area paint attempts this season as well, often from short hooks after getting seals in early or mid-clock situations.

The point is, even while the vast majority of his looks will come in the catch-and-shoot perimeter game, it’s been encouraging to see Love having a resurgent year on the interior finishing from seals/hooks or post-up finishes, at times on putbacks and from cuts.

Obviously, Cleveland preserving his health with a minutes reduction, overall for the season at least, has been a big factor, as has the team having youngsters with more experience as the season progresses, mixed in with some work from heady vets.

Granted, there still are some instances where Love doesn’t necessarily have it going, but by and large, even in games when he’s not hitting from deep, Cleveland can finding ways to get him interior looks or seals has consistently led to quality offense.

Now, it’s understandable that the team is reportedly seeking perimeter/wing help via trade, to ease the pressure on Darius Garland, however, and more playmaking help for Love, Evan Mobley and others could go a long way, as an aside.

In any case, as we’ve demonstrated, it’s been good to see, regardless of the shift to a bench role, be far more effective in the finishing sense this season.

For what it’s worth, somewhat along the lines of what we mentioned early on, even with it not being quite as it was earlier in the season, Love has still placed in the 64th percentile in post-up scoring this season, per Synergy Sports. On a frequency of 17.7 percent, that’s been solid.

Hopefully the 33-year-old forward remains healthy from here, and he can continue to be a crucial offensive and rebounding presence for the Cavs, and quality secondary playmaker this season and in the postseason, too.