When we last met in the Cavalier Film Room, we talked about Kyrie Irving’s defense. This time, we’re finally going to get into some of David Blatt’s offense.

I’m going to start with what has become pretty obvious: Kevin Love is a really good first quarter player. Not only is Love an excellent first quarter player, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are an excellent first quarter team (first in points – 28.5, field goal percentage – 51.8%, and three-point percentage – 50.4% in the first). That’s not a coincidence, but what are Love and the Cavaliers doing differently in the first quarter as opposed to the others where Love has ranged from timid to disengaged for stretches?

Let’s take a look at a couple of recent first quarters. We’ll look at last week’s first quarter in Brooklyn. Love scored 15 of his 19 points in the first quarter against Mirza Teletovic primarily. In the first quarter, early offense can be the best offense. As Kyrie brings the ball up the court, both Shawn Marion and LeBron James flash through right to left and out beyond the three-point arc. Love pins Teletovic as the ball gets passed to James on the left wing.



Teletovic doesn’t let Love stay on the block, but that’s fine with Love. Kevin reverse-pivots to turn and face the bucket. One of Love’s best skills is his believable ball fakes, both passing and shooting. Here, he gives one hard fake to his right to fake a drive, then pops the mid-range jumper. Being the skilled and smart big that he is, Love uses the glass and makes it. It’s simple, it’s not flashy, but it was quick, effective, and a high percentage shot early in the shot clock. Love just so happens to be shooting 60% on mid-range looks in the first quarter (21-of-35)

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Next, the first thing to notice here is Love running to get down the court rather than lolly-gagging as a trailer looking only for an outside shot. That has its time and place, but Love runs down to his spot here and immediately tries to fight for position on the high post. From this spot, the Cavs have had some moderate success with high low action between Love and Anderson Varejao, who both have been strong first quarter players this season.



Love gets pushed out again by Teletovic after some back-and-forth contact. Similar to before, Love reverse pivots to turn and face as he stands on the three-point line. It’s a ball fake to his right where he chops his right leg, followed by a quick shot fake, another fake to his right to freeze Mirza, and then he pops the long two pointer. We see this same process quite often with James where he has a defender on the island and lulls him to sleep with multiple fakes and/or dribbles to get his comfort zone before firing away with a shot. With Love, you can tell so much work has been put in to just use shot fakes by default that they are a near-constant in his game.

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All of those ball fakes pay off on this play. Once again, Love gets the ball in the mid-post. Notice how everybody clears to the other side of the floor to give Love space to operate. This time, Teletovic crowds Love to prevent another shot attempt from mid-range. As a result, Love takes him off the dribble with his left.

After dribbling left, Love backs him down with his right hand before turning to face the basket again. This time, it’s a quick shot fake up before he’s even fully turned that gets Teletovic leaning. Kevin then goes underneath him for the soft lay-in that just sneaks by the shot block attempt. The Nets had Love’s right defended quite well until that quick shot fake got Teletovic up and off balance. Then, it was all about Love quickly taking advantage of that momentary window and using his touch around the rim.

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Even when he’s not ball side, Love looks more interested in the first quarter. Here, he starts with the ball out top, and the ball is reversed to Matthew Dellavedova in the corner.

As the ball is swung, Love cuts into the high post area, but instead of staying in there, he fades out to the left corner as the Cavs have a five-out look for a brief moment as Delly begins to drive into the paint. Delly actually drives right into the spot where Love vacated, and the help defense required to stop Delly opens Love up for an open wing three, which he cashes in on. Love’s man lost sight of the ball-man-you triangle, and the Cavs made him pay for it with good spacing and movement.

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After all of that, what can we pinpoint about Kevin Love first quarters? First, it’s headlined by Love’s willingness to post up strong and his teammates’ willingness to find him down low. Next, when he’s not in the post, he’s screening on ball or at least on ball-side for good shot attempts. Finally, if he’s not on the ball-side, he’s fading or cutting, remaining open and ready to knock down an outside shot. Too often in the other quarters, Love will get lost in the shuffle on the back-side or be relegated strictly to outside looks. How does Love stack up with his teammates in terms of first quarter stats?



Where’s Kevin Love getting his shots in the first quarter as opposed to the rest of the game? Well, as we can see below, a whopping HALF of Love’s looks from 8-24 feet have come in the first quarter this year. Love’s looks become more secondary (dump-offs of dribble drives from LeBron and Kyrie, for instance) in subsequent quarters, and he’s often drawing more contact on the move, which is sometimes not called. He’s also setting up shop on the three-point line, but he’s only a 24.7% shooter from deep outside that first quarter.

What could be contributing to this huge dropoff in looks? Well, it is truly difficult to keep three players offensively engaged at all times when one of them isn’t a primary ball handler. It requires consistent pick and rolls and fluid offensive movement.

The Cavs seem to prefer Kyrie and LeBron penetration and isolation later in games rather than deliberate post feeds and a spread floor. It also seems as if the Cavs begin to look for both Varejao and Thompson to set more screens and roll for easy buckets more often than Love after the first quarter. Another contributing factor to this, in my opinion? The Cavs continue to get uneven three-point makes from their role players, which encourages spacing and potential kick-outs from the post.

After the Big Three-valiers, the Cavs have four guys with between at least three-point makes (Waiters, Marion, Harris, Jones), but none have more than 15 and a decent chunk of those have come in garbage time or in one-game mirages. What can the Cavaliers do to not forget about Kevin Love? Keep their spacing, get Love down on the block, and let him utilize his fakes and touch around the rim. If they don’t, the Cavaliers will continue to run into some offensive stumbling blocks after great starts.