CLEVELAND -- If the fact that the Cleveland Cavaliers' win Tuesday to go 4-0 for the first time since 2000-01 wasn't counterintuitive enough -- who would have guessed the last time that happened it was a non-LeBron James Cavs team whose best player was Andre Miller? -- the game's most notable development was even more surprising: Kevin Love's defense.

"Kev turned it around, you know, defensively," James said after Cleveland handled Houston 128-120. "He got his hands on a couple loose balls, or pocket passes, and allowed us to get out in transition and hit some big shots, so Kev definitely sparked that run."

It was midway through the fourth quarter when Love nabbed two steals on consecutive possessions, leading to a 6-0 flurry from the Cavs that turned a four-point advantage into a double-digit lead.

His role in "The Stop" against Stephen Curry in Game 7 of the Finals aside, Love has rarely been lauded for his lateral quickness, length, physicality or any of the other skills generally associated with being considered a top-notch defender.

"You know, some people are not defenders," Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said, bluntly. "As long as you give effort, you can make up for a lot of mistakes, and Kevin is giving effort and he's been good for us defensively."

While he knows he won't be a threat to Kawhi Leonard's reign as Defensive Player of the Year, Love isn't dropping his defensive duties from the equation either.

Kevin Love's second-half defensive intensity was contagious on Tuesday. Rick Osentoski/USA TODAY Sports

"I'm not going to be a guy who averages two blocks a game," Love admitted before making his case. "I don't know what the stats say, but I'd bet you that statistically I'm not a bad defender, so to speak. I think I read defenses relatively well."

Indeed, through the Cavs' first three games, Love had a defensive rating of 91.3 (defensive rating = [opponent's points allowed/opponent's possessions] x 100), which was second best on Cleveland behind only Iman Shumpert among the regular rotation players.

Also, according to NBA.com/stats, opponents were shooting just 38.3 percent when matched up with Love as their primary defender through the Cavs' first three games.

Lue says he thinks that Love's overall comfort with the Cavs -- his offensive output paramount in that discussion -- is the real reason his defense has become more reliable.

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"I think now that he's touching the ball and he feels a part of the offense, when you're making shots or getting shots ... then you play defense, that's just the name of the game," Lue said of Love, whose 21 points per game average is actually above James' 20.5 in the early going. "But overall, his defense has been great. I mean, two big steals that really helped us open up the game getting out in transition."

Love is second on the team in steals thus far, behind only Shumpert, and first in blocked shots.

The block Love had against Houston was a perfect example of his defensive awareness outweighing his physical limitations. Rockets swingman K.J. McDaniels blew past Love when he put the ball on the floor in the short corner, but Love angled him toward the baseline and was able to catch McDaniels on the other side of the rim for the block.

"I think it was more than anything he finished on the other side of the rim a couple plays before, so I knew he wanted to go up and under," Love said. "I wanted to take that away and use the baseline as another defender for sure."

Again, it wasn't anything like "The Block" that James unleashed on Andre Iguodala in Game 7, but it was a block, plain and simple, and a defensive play that helped the Cavs.

"Obviously there's guys in this league that dominate the ball, like a Kyrie [Irving] or a Bron that just beat you to the lane," Love said. "It's just very hard to play against them. There's a lot of guys even on that Warriors team that you saw in the Finals that are so good at that. It's just something I continue to try to get better at."

If Love can achieve what he's aspiring to do, Cleveland can pull off something else that would be pretty counterintuitive: making their season better than it was in 2015-16. Sure, that epic comeback from a 3-1 Finals deficit to a Golden State team that went 73-9 was as good of an ending imaginable, but the rest of it -- from a coaching change to cryptic tweets to All-Star snubs and injuries -- was a bear to slog through.

If Love, whose own coach pegs as just "not a defender," can suddenly improve on that end, there's plenty of hope for how the Cavs can get better as a group this season.