CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Kevin Love wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of playing against Detroit Pistons All-Star center Andre Drummond Monday night. Not on the heels of battling New York's Enes Kanter, Charlotte's Dwight Howard and Los Angeles Clippers big man DeAndre Jordan.

That's reality for Love. He's in a new position, moved to center at the start of the season and forced back because of Tristan Thompson's calf injury.

"I don't want to say (I am) out of position but those are big boys and I have to make sure I'm well fed and rested," Love said when asked about his approach the other night.

It wasn't Monday's pre-game meal. It wasn't the extra sleep the team got by arriving in Detroit one day earlier.

Love looked more comfortable in part because the Cavs used him differently. The Pistons' bizarre strategy helped. Instead of having the taller, bulkier Drummond as the primary defender -- the kind of center that has bothered Love this season -- the Pistons tried smaller players, hoping speed and quickness would do the trick.

Often matched up with undersized power forwards Tobias Harris and Anthony Tolliver while Drummond guarded Jae Crowder, Love was able to work in the post, where he remains one of the league's most efficient back-to-the-basket players.

Exploiting those mismatches helped Love finish with 19 points on 8-of-12 from the field to go with 11 rebounds in 26 minutes.

"We're in a good groove right now and we wanted to try to continue that coming in here today," LeBron James told reporters after the blowout win. "They've been playing extremely good basketball coming off a great win last night in Minnesota. We knew they were gonna come out and try to give us their best shot and we had to be ready for that. We just had a lot of flurries tonight. We had a lot of flurries and we didn't stop."

When the Pistons altered their defensive strategy, bringing an extra defender to get the ball out of Love's hands or shifting Drummond on Love to keep him away from the paint, Love turned into a playmaker, dishing out four assists.

Late in the first quarter, head coach Tyronn Lue even played Love and Channing Frye together, allowing Love to slide back to power forward.

During that two-minute stretch, Love tallied six points and showed off the inside-outside game that makes him such a unique threat.

On the defensive end, the Cavs did a good job of masking Love's deficiencies. Drummond isn't a polished offensive player, often relying on lobs, put-backs and other shots close to the rim. And when the Pistons tried their dangerous high pick-and-roll with Reggie Jackson, the Cavs blitzed, keeping Jackson out of the lane and making Drummond a playmaker instead of a finisher.

The result: eight points, eight rebounds, three assists and six turnovers for Drummond.

When Lue first made the decision to go with Love as the starting center instead of Thompson, Lue spoke about the desire to have more offense and floor spacing. He needed it with a backcourt of Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade -- a pair of hit-and-miss outside shooters.

The thinking was logical. Love's 3-point reputation and ability to pull defenders away from the basket helps teammates. It also opens the court for James who thrives with shooters around him. But it's had a negative impact on Love at times, forcing him further away from the hoop.

In the first month of the season, Love averaged 5.6 3-pointers on 13.4 shots. That's too many, leading to inefficiency on the offensive end, as he shot 42.6 percent from the field and 35.9 percent from beyond the arc.

With Kyrie Irving in Boston, Love was expected to be more of an offensive focal point, more comfortable in Cleveland than in the last few years. Being used inside was supposed to be a given.

Instead, things got shaken up and Love had to adjust. Again.

But it's starting to come together, as Love's 3-point attempts have started to drop, averaging 4.2 in the last 10 games, and his post-ups have increased.

On Monday, that rise continued, helping fuel one of the Cavs' best performances.

"It just felt like us," Love said. "There weren't any lapses, there weren't any let-ups throughout the game. We kept the turnovers down, that was huge for us, especially in that first half. I felt like we defended the 3 well.

"Other than that we ran our offense, we took our shots, we hit our shots, hit our 3s. There were a lot of good things tonight that felt like or looked the like stuff we're capable of out there on the floor. It was one of those games where we kind of put it all together."

Like everything else with the new-look Cavs, it has taken some time. And it's not a finished product.

But the Cavs are starting to look more like what many expected, with Love having a more prominent role, averaging 22 points on 26-of-46 (56.5 percent) from the field and 5-of-12 (41.6 percent) from 3-point range in the last three games.