Cavs’ Kevin Love thinks he’ll play more sans Jarrett Allen, and rightfully so

It was tough news early this week that Jarrett Allen suffered both a quad bruise and a fractured left middle finger in the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday night. Per a team press release on Monday, there’s currently no set time table for how long Allen is expected to be sidelined for; he’ll be out indefinitely for now.

This was awful news for the Cavaliers, as Allen has had a breakout season in 2021-22, and made his first All-Star appearance. He’s played well in most of Cleveland’s post-All-Star break games, and while the team needs to pick up overall, Allen has been a bright spot in a tough stretch.

The Cavs have not been strangers to injuries this season, to say the least, but as has been the case throughout the season, Cleveland will need to press on without Allen in coming games. We’ll likely see Ed Davis step in for some stretches, Evan Mobley will get his share of minutes at the 5, and it does seem feasible that the Cavs could potentially look to sign Moses Brown or say, Cody Zeller, via team-friendly and/or a pair of 10-day deals.

Needless to say, Mobley is likely to have an expanded role I’d imagine, and could be more of an offensive focal point. I personally believe the Cavaliers will need Lauri Markkanen to have balance in his approach on offense, also, and his inside-out game will have to be impactful with Allen out.

There will have to be a balanced effort for the team in general, as there generally needs to be, but regarding other contributors, Kevin Love will seemingly need to be more involved for stretches without Allen as well, to that point. Based on comments from him in recent media availability, Love is expecting to play more minutes with Allen sidelined, too; here was more on that, via Evan Dammarell of Fear The Sword and Right Down Euclid.

Love believes he’ll likely play more for the Cavs without Allen, which could play out in plenty of games.

Love played 15 minutes in Cleveland’s thrilling, but also frustrating win over the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday, where Darius Garland had a career-best 41 points, to go with 13 assists. In that one, Love had nine points and four rebounds; he was only 4-of-11 from the field, though, and 1-of-6 from three, and was a minus-10.

That’s been pretty uncharacteristic for Love, compared to the norm for the season, in fairness. In his shift to a bench role this go-round, Love has been very effective as a key shooting presence in that move, as he’s knocked down 38.8 percent of his threes, and has had 13.9 points per contest.

Along with that deep shooting, he has finished far better than in the last several seasons, and him drawing 3.1 free throws in 22.1 minutes per outing has been notable, too. He’s made 85.5 percent of those as well.

In any case, while we didn’t see it play out on Tuesday, and Cleveland went to starting Dean Wade at the 3, as we’ve seen a bunch this season in times when Lauri Markkanen was unavailable, I could foresee Love getting more than his season average in plenty of games sans Allen. It’s reportedly uncertain as to whether or not Allen will be back before the regular season ends, for context; so we’ll have to see on that front.

Regardless, although Love is not a guy we’ve seen play much at the 5 this season, I could still see the Cavs have him in for say 25-28 minutes in a bunch of games in the closing month or so of the regular season. There’s still been a considerable amount of contests where that’s happened this season, for reference, and more often than not, Love’s provided quite the offensive boost.

And from a shooting and defensive rebounding lift, that could help out Evan Mobley for stretches, I’d imagine, and in some lineups with Ed Davis/a potential signing filling in with say Markkanen, Wade or Isaac Okoro/Cedi Osman at the 3, Love still can function as a go-to catch-and-shoot guy. He’s also a player Cleveland can run some offense through at the elbows/mid-post, as we’ve seen throughout the year in his bench minutes.

We’ll again have to see what ultimately transpires involving Love’s minutes from here, but with his offensive abilities, and actually much better team defense this season, such as with how he’s drawn charges pretty regularly, he could seemingly have an increased minutes-share in plenty of games without Allen available. His comments were reasonable, particularly as a reliable veteran presence.

He’ll get himself going once again in coming games here shooting-wise, too, I believe. He’s had 10.9 points per contest and shot 35.0 percent in seven post-All-Star games, however, things should pick up with Garland back, Rajon Rondo should get more comfortable, and Caris LeVert could be back pretty soon.