CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Kevin Love wanted the ball. Really, really wanted the ball.

With about an eight-second difference between the game and shot clock at the end of the first half Saturday night, Love was being defended by diminutive point guard Chris Paul. So Love put both arms in the air and demanded the ball. Only it never came his way.

Collin Sexton, at head coach John Beilein’s urging, started dribbling the clock down about 40 feet away from the basket while teammates looked on in bewilderment.

So, as that was happening, Love tried taking matters into his own hands. He angrily stomped toward the top of the key and then closer to Sexton. Love put his hands out, finally got the ball, cocked it behind his head, pivoted toward Osman who was on the left wing, and fired a bullet pass with both hands that bounced at Osman’s feet and could’ve broken the swingman’s finger. Then Love dejectedly walked inside the 3-point line, away from Sexton, away from the play, away from everything.

Osman was fouled on the 3-point attempt, hitting two of three from the line. It didn’t matter how that play ended. Who cares that the Cavs scored two points to cut the Thunder lead to 11?

The only memory was Love’s boiled-over annoyance.

“I think you’re talking about the play with Chris Paul on me. Yeah, I felt we were making a play call and at the end of the second half we were in the bonus and I had Chris Paul on me,” Love said after the 121-106 loss. “Felt swing it to me and try to throw it in the post, see if they double-team me and get a shot out of that, but that’s not what we did. Yeah, I was frustrated.”

You can say that again, Kevin. That wasn’t the only moment of frustration for Love on Saturday.

Hours earlier, Love had a verbal altercation with general manager Koby Altman over what Love thought was a nonsensical $1,000 fine -- one levied as a result of Love’s on-the-bench blowup in the third quarter of Tuesday’s 20-point loss against the Toronto Raptors. That night, Love slowly walked to the bench and pounded his fist on the cushy seats before asking for a sub. Love re-entered the game a little bit later in the second half, but that sideline outburst was captured on video, the Cavs didn’t like it and fined him for his poor behavior.

According to sources, both Love and Altman agreed to move forward at the end of Saturday’s heart-to-heart that eventually moved off the court and into the office inside Cleveland Clinic Courts. But once the game started slipping away on Saturday, and the same mistakes kept getting made, Love let his emotions take over. Again.

“It’s on me as a leader to step in and pick their spirits up,” Tristan Thompson told cleveland.com. “It’s a long game and it’s a long season so you are going to go through your highs and lows. Me, this is my team and being a leader of this team, I have to keep guys honed in and locked in. Regardless of what the score is or how guys are feeling, we all still have to be one unit and go to war with each other.”

Thompson urged Love to “control what you can control.” But Thompson also said he didn’t see that specific tantrum at the end of the first half.

“Maybe we were trying to run offense and Collin didn’t know,” Thompson said. “I didn’t see it.”

Following the game, Beilein shouldered the blame.

“That was my mistake,” Beilein said. “I was trying to get us to slow down and try to get, not the last shot, but close to the last shot. He had Chris Paul posted up and I didn’t see it. It was on me. I called something else.”

After leaving the arena, Love posted multiple photos to his Instagram account, ones of him embracing teammates at various points. He added a caption that finished with three flexed-muscle emojis.

“A lot of non truths being shared," he wrote. "But I’ve learned that we live in a world where people remember accusations and not rebuttals. Let them paint whatever picture they want. Fact is — I love my teammates.”

The first photo attached to that post depicts him and Sexton together. Love has discussed his growing relationship with Sexton at length throughout the season. He reached out to Sexton this summer. The two sit by each other on the bus and joke about football. Love has also admitted that being hard on the 21-year-old guard is for Sexton’s benefit, because he wants Sexton to get better, believes in Sexton’s talent. He chastised Sexton a few different times during Thursday’s loss to Charlotte and passive-aggressively showed him up more than once. But when Sexton’s game-tying triple bounced off the rim, Love was there, wrapping his arm around Sexton and picking him up. It’s been that kind of relationship between the two.

Still, it’s abundantly clear, no matter what Love has said publicly, that playing alongside Sexton and sometimes being ignored for long stretches as a result, hasn’t been easy. Sexton’s score-first style can be a challenge. It’s why teammates verbally attacked him early last season. Love is the team’s best -- and most important -- player. He’s an NBA champion. He’s been on elite teams that play the right away. When his teammates don’t, it clearly irritates him.

Over the last couple of weeks, a few players have expressed their displeasure with the team’s “selfishness.” It’s been a problem for months. They believe that’s played the biggest role in the growing number of turnovers and inconsistent offense. Nearing the halfway point of the 2019-20 season, that hasn’t changed enough for some. No one has specifically been singled out or labeled selfish, but more than one player mentioned that nasty trait often being the mark of a young, rebuilding team.

Everyone has the same goal: They want this team to grow and play the proper way. When it doesn’t happen, moments like Saturday night follow. Or the one in Toronto that led to Love being fined. Or earlier this season in Philadelphia -- a few games before Altman had to have his first talk with Love about attitude, body language and staying engaged. Or San Antonio, when Thompson shouted at Beilein.

It’s always good to have players that care. Beilein sees that passion. But how it’s being shown, when it’s happening in the middle of a play and carrying over to the other end of the floor, well, that’s not productive. It’s disruptive.

“It really doesn’t make you a better player or a better coach at that time,” Beilein said. “It’s like carrying a suitcase around with you that you have extra baggage. We don’t need to do that. So, as it’s pointed out to them or we see it, we try to address it the best we can.”

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