INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- For Kevin Love, his first trip to the postseason ended halfway through Game 4 of the Cleveland Cavaliers' first-round sweep of the Boston Celtics as he hurried off the TD Garden floor clutching his left shoulder after it had just been ripped from its socket.

For Kyrie Irving, his baptism into playoff basketball was cut short a couple of minutes into overtime of Game 1 of the NBA Finals as he limped down the tunnel at Oracle Arena toward the visitor's locker room after fracturing his left kneecap.

Now, on the eve of Game 1 of the Cavs' first-round series with the Detroit Pistons, the pair returns to chase a championship with health and playoff experience (albeit brief) on their side.

“You don’t want to take it for granted,” Irving said of the shot at redemption. “Just living in the moment, taking advantage of every opportunity that we have to kind of come into this series all healthy and feeling good about ourselves.”

Love and Irving both endured up-and-down seasons to get to this point. Love only averaged 16 points on 41.9 percent shooting overall -- 36 percent from 3-point range -- and 9.9 rebounds for the year. On the plus side, he maintained his health all season, playing in 77 of 82 games, and upped his play late by averaging 18.6 points on 45.6 percent shooting overall (42.5 percent from 3) and 10.1 rebounds in his last 11 games.

Irving missed 26 of the Cavs’ first 30 games as he recovered from surgery to repair his knee. His silver lining came in the fact that once he graduated from his rehab program, he only missed two more games all season -- one because of a bum ankle and the other to rest.

While they finished last season as spectators, the Cavs will rely on both Love and Irving to be instigators of their offensive attack once the curtain is drawn on Cleveland’s 2016 postseason run.

“I think they're engaged and excited to get a chance to get out here and have an opportunity to play in the playoffs again,” said Cavs coach Tyronn Lue. “Last year in that first round, Kevin was unbelievable, he was phenomenal, and so was Kyrie. Kevin going out in that fourth game and Kyrie having to play with that injury that lingered all throughout the playoffs, this is a good sign for those guys to of being healthy going into the playoffs.”

Both Love and Irving have had 10 months to think about what might have been. Now, they have the challenge of leaving that all behind and hitting the reset button.

“It’s a little bit different because when I started the playoffs last year I was going into I think my eighth or ninth straight month of playing basketball,” Irving said. “It was a little different. At a high level of playing, going through the rigorous season and then going into the playoffs, I felt really, really good. Coming into this season I think I’m going on 4 1/2 months of playing basketball. That takes into account. But just the amount of preparation, more preparation that I’ve had to have going into this season now going into the playoffs is a lot higher. It’s nothing I didn’t expect. I had to put myself in position in order to be great in these playoffs.”

Love remembers wanting to be great so bad last April that he got in his own way.

“Getting a taste, for me, was a lot different,” Love said. “I had to calm myself down, slow myself down a little bit because you get into a game, even at home for us playing in front of the fans at The Q, you want to speed up, you want to do so well, so fast. You got to remind yourself that it’s a 48-minute game. I think for us here, we have guys that have been through it, know what to expect and are ready for this battle.”

It wasn’t just Love and Irving who had never played a playoff game before going into the Cavs’ first-round opener last season against Boston. Matthew Dellavedova and Tristan Thompson were postseason newbies too.

Now, with health and experience on their side, the Cavs will try to make amends for last year’s playoff run that stopped just short of glory.

“I know that as a human being, you want to get out ahead of yourself,” Love said. “You want to know what’s next. But for us, we can’t do that. I think when we have that win-or-die and win-or-go-home type mentality and take it game-by-game, we’re so much better. I know in a lot of ways that’s a cliché, but that’s how we’re looking at it, and I don’t think any of these guys would tell you different.”