For Kevin Love this year, he had to make a big change to his game. The Cleveland Cavaliers big man is playing a lot more at the five position because it creates mismatches for him on the offensive end. Love is a lot faster than most bigs that are put on him, and that really opens up the game not only for Love but also rest of the Cavs.
After Love’s big Game 2 he talked about the changes and how it hasn’t been necessarily easy for him.
“Between us, there’s obviously a mutual respect,” Love, said after Game 2 via ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “He’s helped me so much as I sit here with Cleveland in the past four years. But sometimes you’re going to butt heads, and I mean, my entire life and my entire pro career — this is going to be my 10th year — I’ve spent the majority of my time at the 4 position and the power forward position.
“But he sees something out there in me at the 5 spot and I guess, especially on the offensive end when I have my game going, he wants me to take full advantage of that.”
For Love, he actually wanted to move back to playing power forward because that is his more natural position. But he is a team player, and he is willing to do anything to help the Cavs win.
“I’ve always tried to do the best I can in, I guess, the area of willingness to sacrifice for this team and sometimes we’re going to have a little bit of pushback and I think that’s in some cases healthy,” Love said. “But I respect Ty. I love Ty and I think it’s good for us. I’ll do whatever it takes for this team.”
If Love can continue to exploit this matchup against the Toronto Raptors, this could be a very quick series because the Raptors have no answer for LeBron James and Love together.