Something is different about the Cleveland Cavaliers’ offense.
If you’ve watched their opening two games, the first a loss to the Chicago Bulls, the second a blowout of the Memphis Grizzlies, you’ve seen it. There’s more ball movement. More things are happening away from the action, be they screens, double screens or more consistent cuts. LeBron James, though he has struggled at times, isn’t dominating the ball as much, freeing him up to do some off-action things he hasn’t done since his best days with the Miami Heat.
Above all else, Kevin Love is doing more, he’s being relied upon. He no longer looks like the glorified role player who gets stashed in the corner and asked to drain threes off drive-and-kicks and nothing else. He’s getting touches in the post. He’s serving as a secondary playmaker. He just looks like he’s working more.
Whether this is a symptom of Kyrie Irving’s absence or a sign that things in Cleveland, at least on offense, really have changed, we’ll have to wait and see. But even with a middling 1-1 record to start the season, you can feel the optimism, you can sense that this isn’t last year’s team, and that Love isn’t last year’s Love, and that the relationship between LeBron and one of his most important running mates ever has changed for the better.
All because of that poolside confab.
Yup, that’s still a thing.
From Joe Vardon of Northeast Ohio Media Group:
James, who only scored 12 points against Memphis, was effusive in his praise of Love. But when he was asked when he realized Love would come out sharp despite missing most of the preseason recovering from shoulder surgery, James dove back to the pool.
“I knew he’d be sharp when I had my conversation with him in Los Angeles in the offseason,” LeBron said.
The funny part is, when James and Love were first spotted by that L.A.-area pool, people close to James and the Cavs totally downplayed the meeting. Now, it’s apparent that James and Love mutually discovered the true meaning of life on Earth while planted in deck chairs under a cabana.
On Wednesday, Love said he used his opportunity to talk to James to tell him “just that I can do more.
“I think that he knew that,” Love said. “Since then I think everybody is really stepped up and asked what they can do in their respective roles. From a comfort standpoint, I just feel a lot, a lot better.”
This has a very fit-in, fit-out feel to it. First LeBron’s tweet meant something, then nothing, then something again. Now the poolside meeting, first thought to be huge but then downplayed, is being drummed up as a preeminent turning point.
Whatever it was, it worked. Love looks more at ease, the offense seems like it will be worlds better over the long run, and Love and LeBron have gone from awkward coworkers to cabana buddies.
