Kevin Love's Defense

[CelticSince83]

America's favorite scapegoat, Kevin Love has the lowest (best) DRtg on CLE this finals @ 109.  Most blocks, and more than doubles anyone else in steals with 11. 

I noticed him make a few nice defensive plays and thought to myself, hmmm perhaps his defense has improved and he is no longer the liability he is made out to be.  Looking at advanced stats from this series.....

Are people really going to blame this one on K Love who is +8 per 100 possessions while glorifying Kyrie who is -12 p/100?   

[hodgy03038]

America's favorite scapegoat, Kevin Love has the lowest (best) DRtg on CLE this finals @ 109.  Most blocks, and more than doubles anyone else in steals with 11. 

I noticed him make a few nice defensive plays and thought to myself, hmmm perhaps his defense has improved and he is no longer the liability he is made out to be.  Looking at advanced stats from this series.....

Are people really going to blame this one on K Love who is +8 per 100 possessions while glorifying Kyrie who is -12 p/100?

Kyrie didn't even show up until game 3 so I am not sure why he gets so many accolades. Until game 3 I was wondering how this guy beat us in the series with Cleveland. And his decision making and the wasting time and very poor step back 3 in game 3 was bad so I am not on the Kyrie train at all. Love has been far more consistent. Just one bad shooting game.

[CelticSince83]

America's favorite scapegoat, Kevin Love has the lowest (best) DRtg on CLE this finals @ 109.  Most blocks, and more than doubles anyone else in steals with 11. 

I noticed him make a few nice defensive plays and thought to myself, hmmm perhaps his defense has improved and he is no longer the liability he is made out to be.  Looking at advanced stats from this series.....

Are people really going to blame this one on K Love who is +8 per 100 possessions while glorifying Kyrie who is -12 p/100?

Kyrie didn't even show up until game 3 so I am not sure why he gets so many accolades. Until game 3 I was wondering how this guy beat us in the series with Cleveland. And his decision making and the wasting time and very poor step back 3 in game 3 was bad so I am not on the Kyrie train at all. Love has been far more consistent. Just one bad shooting game.

Flash over substance it seems.  On the other hand, it's hard to ignore his hot streaks. 

[liam]

Kevin Love plays defense?

[guava_wrench]

America's favorite scapegoat, Kevin Love has the lowest (best) DRtg on CLE this finals @ 109.  Most blocks, and more than doubles anyone else in steals with 11. 

I noticed him make a few nice defensive plays and thought to myself, hmmm perhaps his defense has improved and he is no longer the liability he is made out to be.  Looking at advanced stats from this series.....

Are people really going to blame this one on K Love who is +8 per 100 possessions while glorifying Kyrie who is -12 p/100?

Kyrie didn't even show up until game 3 so I am not sure why he gets so many accolades. Until game 3 I was wondering how this guy beat us in the series with Cleveland. And his decision making and the wasting time and very poor step back 3 in game 3 was bad so I am not on the Kyrie train at all. Love has been far more consistent. Just one bad shooting game.

Kyrie is an amazing dribbler and finisher, but that final play shows how big the gap is between him and Curry as an overall player and especially as a decision maker.

I'm not sure why people love to hate on Love so much. He is getting Bosh in Miami underappreciation and then some. I was one of the people very hesitant to commit to Love when we were trying to get him, but the guy is still a great talent and is clearly working really hard to fit what the team needs.

[action781]

America's favorite scapegoat, Kevin Love has the lowest (best) DRtg on CLE this finals @ 109.  Most blocks, and more than doubles anyone else in steals with 11. 

I noticed him make a few nice defensive plays and thought to myself, hmmm perhaps his defense has improved and he is no longer the liability he is made out to be.  Looking at advanced stats from this series.....

Are people really going to blame this one on K Love who is +8 per 100 possessions while glorifying Kyrie who is -12 p/100?

He has 4 blocks in 4 games.  That is solidly average for a frontcourt player.  He had one fluky game with a career-high 6 steals (his previous career high was 4).

He has improved his defense from his days when I didn't want him on my roster for free, but he's still far from very good and you're putting a lot of weight in a small sample.

A better piece of data to back up your opinion is that Love had the best DRtg (107) out of all the Cavs throughout the entire 2016-17 season.  Now we're talking about something that needs to be looked at.

[Celtics4ever]

He actually is not the reason they are losing.   The Cavs have a really poor team outside of their big three .   Thompson has a  had a poor series.  Korver is decent, Smith and Shumpert can play decent.   The rest of their team though is meh.