LeBron James and Cavs lose Kevin Love for pivotal Game 7
The Cleveland Cavaliers were seemingly dealt a major blow in their efforts to defend their Eastern Conference title when they learned that forward Kevin Love will be out of Sunday’s Game 7 in Boston.
“Kevin Love was evaluated today prior to the team’s flight to Boston this afternoon. He is experiencing concussion-like symptoms and has been placed in the league’s concussion protocol. He is now listed as Out for tomorrow night’s game in Boston. His status will be updated as appropriate,” the team said in a statement Saturday.
Love was injured when he butted heads with the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum in the first quarter of Game 6 Friday night.
Kevin Love went off to the locker room after knocking heads with Jayson Tatum pic.twitter.com/HYd59F3VSo
— Def Pen Hoops (@DefPenHoops) May 26, 2018
Tatum was chasing his man, George Hill, out to the perimeter when he ran into Love, who was moving the other way to guard Al Horford.
Love left the game and did not return, but the Cavs, with a boost from his replacement, Jeff Green, went on to win 109-99 to force a Game 7.
Green had 14 points in 31 minutes.
Jeff Green to start in place of Kevin Love (concussion) for Game 7 https://t.co/8xuSuB8HD0 pic.twitter.com/syxE8SSGas
— Bleacher Report NBA (@BR_NBA) May 27, 2018
The loss of the team’s second-leading scorer (17.6 points per game) and top rebounder (9.3 per game) would appear to be a big problem for Cleveland.
However, in this series against Boston, according to ESPN, the Cavs have been plus-18 in point differential when Love is off the court and minus-20 when he is in the game.
There’s obviously been a match-up problem versus the Celtics with Love in the game, so it might not be the death knell for Cleveland that some expect.
“We’ll have to prepare our team to play well regardless of who’s on the floor for them,” Celtics coach Stevens said, reported ESPN. “[Love’s absence] changes some of the things they run, offensively.
“Obviously they have a package of Love plays that they go to on offense, so they end up doing more stuff with LeBron, I thought [George] Hill and [Jordan] Clarkson were good off pick-and-rolls last night, I thought that Jeff Green as really good, and I thought that they continued to have all of the different little wrinkles for [Kyle] Korver and [J.R.] Smith coming off the screens. Obviously, they run a little bit less of the Love stuff and more of the other stuff,” Stevens added.
The player on the other end of the collision, Tatum, was cleared to play Sunday.
“We had our primary physician and our team doc both in here today checking on him. And he’s great,” Stevens said. “He felt great this morning, felt great last night when we landed, felt great after the game. Nothing there, as far as to be concerned about, but we will continue to check in.”
https://twitter.com/TeamLeBron_/status/1000732431354392576
Bring on Game 7.
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