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Love Hurts: Why Cleveland’s Interior Defense Isn’t Working

The new-look Cleveland Cavaliers are off to a slow start. Sure, it’s early, and the team is destined to improve. But the Cavs aren’t good right now — especially on defense. With a new coach, a new system, and an overhauled roster, it’s only fair to expect some growing pains. These problems, though, might have more to do with the kind of players Cleveland has, rather than how they’re playing.

Amid all the preseason hullabaloo about Cleveland’s new supergroup, many observers expressed concern about the team’s ability to defend the interior. One of these observers was the Cavaliers’ own general manager.


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#Cavs GM David Griffin to Fox Sports Radio: “I have concerns (on) ability to protect the rim, and that’s not just a Kevin (Love) question."
3:28 PM - 28 Aug 2014

Through 10 games, David Griffin’s concerns look valid. His team can’t protect the basket. And while this isn’t just a “Kevin Love question,” his struggles to defend down low are certainly part of the issue. Cleveland ranks 26th in defensive efficiency and gives up a whopping 108 points per 100 possessions. They’ve been an absolute sieve in the paint, ranking 28th in the league with opponents converting 61 percent of attempts inside of eight feet. Simply put, if this doesn’t improve, the Cavaliers won’t win the championship.



Whether by design or by default, the Cavs now depend on Love’s interior defense — and thus far, their man in the paint has really struggled. This season, 51 NBA players have faced more than six shots per game near the basket. On that list, Love ranks 49th in opponents’ field percentage. Opponents are making 63.6 percent of their shots inside of five feet when Love is nearby.

But here’s the thing — this isn’t new. Love was among the least effective volume rim protectors in the league last year, too. Like it or not, he is who we thought he was, and any team leaning on Love to help protect the paint will be exposed. The good news is that of the team’s three primary rim protectors, the other two are pretty good. The bad news: Neither of those guys play nearly as much as Love. Through 10 games:

Love’s superstar status has never had anything to do with his defense, which may say more about what it takes to be a superstar than it does about his overall game. Regardless, the guy has been one of the league’s most brilliant offensive players for years, and that brilliance generally negates his defensive struggles. Unfortunately, so far this season, Love hasn’t found his groove offensively, which only heightens those defensive concerns.



Before the season, I wrote about Love’s evolution as a scorer and how he might fit in Cleveland. In short, I predicted he would post up more and shoot fewer 3s. That hasn’t happened. In fact, Love is shooting more 3s, as 43 percent of his attempts have come from beyond the arc. He’s attempted more 3s than guys like Kyrie Irving, J.J. Redick, Kevin Martin, and Arron Afflalo. It was one thing for Love to be a hyperactive 3-point launcher in Minnesota last season — that team had very few perimeter options. But Cleveland is loaded with great shooters, so it’s hard to justify Love’s early perimeter usage, especially considering his greatness inside the arc.

Eighteen players have posted up at least 50 times this year, per Synergy Sports, but none have been as effective as Love. The Cavs are scoring 1.11 points on those possessions, making all of those 3s even more infuriating.

However, even with Love’s long-range bombing, there’s little doubt the Cavaliers will be a tremendous offensive team this year. The true challenge is fixing the defense, especially the rim protection. If Nazareth has taught us anything about hoops, it’s that “Love hurts / Love scars / Love wounds / And mars” … your interior defense.

Kirk Goldsberry is a professor and Grantland staff writer.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/cleve ... evin-love/

PontiacSilverDome escreveu:cara ele caiu dez pontos na media pra esse ano , é muito ponto

FreeBird33 escreveu:Mas ele foi trocado

Cavs need more Kevin Love
Downsizing his game to fit with LBJ and Irving has limited Cleveland's offense
Originally Published: November 13, 2014
By Bradford Doolittle | ESPN Insider
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Kevin Love
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Kevin Love has spent a lot of time shooting long-range jumpers this season.
Illustrated Big Man Archetypes

Heading into the 2014-15 NBA season, we forecast the Cleveland Cavaliers to post a historic level of offensive efficiency. What else would a projection system say about a team that signed the league's best player in LeBron James, traded for a top-10 player in Kevin Love and teamed them with emerging star in Kyrie Irving? Yet it's also an unfair forecast. There is nowhere to go but down from there.


Cleveland's ninth-ranked offense has been solid despite some well-publicized bumps, especially in the ball-movement category. Yet it's not nearly what we thought the Cavs' offense would be, and not nearly what it will likely become. The attack has been well-above league average when the "big three" have shared the floor, averaging nine points per 100 possessions better than the league average. If that sounds awesome, it's really not. According to NBA.com, among the 250 threesomes to play the most minutes so far this season, 57 have a better offensive efficiency than Irving, James and Love. Power trios like this are supposed to be the tide that lifts their teammates' proverbial boats, but the Cavs' three has just been treading water.

The early issues between Irving and James have gotten a lot of attention, but the player who has seen the biggest shift in his accustomed role has been Love. And if the Cleveland offensive rating is to soar to levels that can offset an iffy defense, the team must get more out of Love. How? The answers are simple, but the execution is complex. Love needs to be more assertive. At the same time, he needs to be put in better position to do more damage.

The evolution of Love

The move to Cleveland has amplified Love's unceasing drift out to the 3-point line and away from the offensive glass (see chart below). In every season of Love's career, the portion of his possessions used by 3-point shots has increased, and his offensive rebound rate has decreased. Love entered the league as a traditional power forward, with top comparables in SCHOENE like Elton Brand and Amar'e Stoudemire. Now, he's a prototype for a 21st-century big who does the dirty work on the defensive glass and fires away from the perimeter on the other end.

The Love movement
YEAR 3PA% ORB%
3PA%: percentage of possessions used terminated in 3-point attempts
ORB%: percentage of teammates' misses retrieved
2008-09 2.8 15.1
2009-10 16.4 14.5
2010-11 20.6 13.7
2011-12 26.6 11.6
2012-13 30.9 11.5
2013-14 35.5 8.5
2014-15 36.8 4.6
Before this season, Love's top comparables in SCHOENE were Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Bosh, the latter of whom has his own stories to tell about adapting to the role of third option on a potential title contender. Now he's playing more like New Orleans' Ryan Anderson. Last season for Minnesota, Love had a usage rate of 29 percent, a number down by nearly 8 percent with the Cavs. No matter how you slice it, Love has downsized his game to fit with James and Irving. And the adaptations can all be grouped under the same umbrella: sacrifice. It's not that he can't do the same things. He's just not being asked to.

The problems start with touches, and not quite in the way that you'd think. According to SportVu, James, with 5.6 minutes of possession and 75 frontcourt touches per game, and Irving, with 6.7 and 77.5, respectively, rank among the top 15 most ball-dominant players in the league. Yet Love's average time of possession of 2.4 minutes is the same as it was last season, and his average frontcourt touches have fallen by only slightly more than five, from 49.7 to 44.1. That difference adds up over a season, but it's still not the dramatic decrease you'd expect. More of an issue has been the quality of touches -- getting Love the ball where he can do the most damage. Last season, Love averaged 7.2 close touches per game (seventh in the league) and 11.6 elbow touches (second). This season, he's at 5.5 close touches and 4.8 elbow touches.

Another illustration of Love's glaring evolution is the play types on which he's utilized. According to Synergy Sports Technologies, Love is averaging 13 plays per game combined on post-ups, spot-ups and as the finisher on pick-and-rolls. That's actually up from 11.6 last season in Minnesota. The problem is that those are the only ways he's getting offense in Cleveland. He's averaging just five plays per game on things like offensive putbacks, cuts, transition shots, isolations, handoffs, and looks off screens. In Minnesota, he was getting 13.9 plays per game in those various facets of the offense. His role in Cleveland has been far more simplistic. You'd expect that to a certain extent, but not to this drastic degree.

The problem is more than one of usage rate. This role also underutilizes Love's considerable abilities as a passer. Last season, he averaged 4.4 assists on 8.4 assist opportunities per game, per SportVu. This season Love averages 1.8 assists on 3.5 assist opportunities. His assists per opportunity rate has remained about the same. Yet coach David Blatt's offense has limited both the quantity and the quality of Love's passing. Last season, Love created an assist opportunity for every 7.2 passes. This season, it has taken him 17.2 passes to create a scoring chance for a teammate. His turnovers are down, a natural byproduct of going from creator to finisher/spacer, but that still leaves a valuable untapped resource in the Cleveland toolkit.

Possible solutions

Love hasn't always been a particularly high-usage player. Most NBA stars build up to heavy workloads, and Love was no exception. In fact, his first elite-level season came before he turned into a high-usage offensive dominator. The first season in which Love finished in the top 10 in WARP was 2010-11, his third NBA campaign. His usage rate that year was 23, or 6 percent below last season. That's a doable figure in this Cleveland configuration, if only Blatt can better leverage Love's skill set.

Kevin Love and LeBron James
Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports
LeBron and Co. would benefit from Love getting more touches.
The shift of Dion Waiters to the second unit helps. The quartet of James, Irving, Love and Anderson Varejao has an offensive rating 16.9 points better with Shawn Marion than it did with Waiters in about the same number of minutes. However, while the Waiters move has allowed James and Irving to return to normal levels of usage, that has not been the case for Love, who can certainly be more assertive, particularly when it comes to finishing at the rim.

At the same time, Blatt can run more sets through Love in the low and high post. Blatt hasn't really been running the traditional Princeton attack in which the center emerges as a primary playmaker, à la Vlade Divac and Brad Miller on the 2000's-era Sacramento Kings. Nevertheless, finding lineups in which Love can operate in this fashion would enable Cleveland to reap the benefits of his passing ability, while also giving him the chance to diversify his scoring arsenal. Blatt can also do a better job of shifting more of Varejao's possessions to Love. While the big three have all sacrificed usage rate in the early going, Varejao's is actually up by 3 percent. This needs to change.

Finally, Blatt can better stagger his rotations to get Love on the floor more often as the top option. So far, James and Irving have played an unsustainable level of minutes, so there should be more chances for Love to shine. Love has played a total of just six minutes without either James or Irving on the court during Cleveland's first six games.

If the Cleveland offense were ripping off points at the prodigious clip we expected, Love's role would be irrelevant. When the unit shines, everybody shines. But the unit isn't as sparkling as you'd expect, and the underuse of Love is a key factor. Love can do more, but he's got to do it without detracting from James and Irving. Thus are the travails of learning how not to be a No. 1 option, a course that Bosh graduated from a few years ago.

marlonks escreveu:Sabia q o C ia ser o Varejão.