CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Sometimes injuries -- and the timing of them during the season -- can be a blessing in disguise.

In Kevin Love's case, he broke a bone in his left non-shooting hand as opposed to his right and while it cost him another appearance in the All-Star Game it happened early enough for him to return, regain his rhythm and conditioning and be fresh for the start of the postseason.

Love's seven-week absence also allowed him to do a bit of homework on his own shooting form, tightening up the release.

"I'm out in front of my head more," Love told cleveland.com Friday night following the 120-95 win against the Phoenix Suns. "I looked at a bunch of my shots when I was out and I was kind of bringing it back a little bit more over my head.

"Just like Kyle (Korver) and I talk about it all the time and he's always trying to figure out how he can fix anybody's shot no matter if you're a 90-plus percent free-throw shooter or he's always looking in the mirror too and seeing where he can get better so I kind of did the same. Hopefully it helps and will continue to get better."

The picture below is from Jan. 11:

This picture is from Wednesday night:

In the three games since his return, Love is averaging 20.3 points on 20-of-43 (46.5 percent) from the field and 10-of-21 (47.6 percent) from 3-point range. Not surprisingly, the Cavs have won all three and are averaging 125 points during the impressive stretch.

For Love, those individual numbers are even better than his season shooting marks, which were already the best of his Cavaliers tenure.

Prior to his injury, which he suffered on Jan. 30 against the Detroit Pistons, he certainly didn't look like a player who needed to adjust anything. But Love is always looking for ways to improve.

While he was rehabbing, Love said he started taking one-handed shots from all over the court, ones where he didn't bring the ball all the way back. Instead, he began the shooting motion further from his forehead and liked the feel of that.

It's worth wondering whether Love would have had time for those study sessions if not for his injury. Would he even have thought to test out a new form?

"Maybe not. That's something I always do when I'm hurt," he said. "I always try to look to come back in great shape, but also always try to look at it where other parts of my body might be lacking and see other parts of my game where I can get a little bit better. That's just a minor tweak and hopefully it will prove to be a big one."

Love admits this alteration will take some time to polish. After all, he's been shooting the same way since he started playing organized basketball. That means years of muscle memory to fight.

But at this point, after all those solo shooting sessions and the many opportunites to test it in pressure moments already, Love said it "feels really natural."

"I just think it takes away...another one was short tonight, but it doesn't seem to be east or west," he said. "Everything is north and south. At least if I can get it there I can give it a chance and it's not going to be missing too far left or right."

The other benefit to this new shooting motion is its speed, which might have been evident during Wednesday's game against the Toronto Raptors.

There were a few instances when Love was able to quick-trigger bombs as the trailer before the defender could close. There was also his clutch corner triple after LeBron James drew a few defenders in the lane before kicking it out.

On that specific play, which was Love's 1000th career 3-pointer and gave the Cavaliers a four-point lead with less than 30 seconds remaining, athletic Pascal Siakam tried to close out from the edge of lane. But Siakam couldn't get there in time, as Love let it fly about 0.7 seconds after catching the pass.

"It's actually a quicker shot too because the release isn't coming back as far or the initial action isn't coming back," he said. "I mean, a split second is huge. This is a game of inches, a game of split seconds, so I think it can help.

"I don't know how close Siakam was the other night, but I felt like I got that shot off pretty quick."