Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving healthy and key to Cavs title hopes

CLEVELAND – Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love watched the final three rounds of the 2015 playoffs, sidelined with a dislocated left shoulder.

“As a competitor and a guy who came here to win it was tough to sit there,” Love said Saturday, the before the Cavs play the Detroit Pistons in Game 1 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.

Cavs guard Kyrie Irving limped and struggled through the first three rounds with a bad knee, until finally he sustained a fractured left knee cap in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, ending his season.

“You don’t want to take it for granted,” Irving said. “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.”

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Love and Irving are healthy now, and their importance is obvious. For the Cavaliers to have a shot at winning the NBA championship, they not only need Love and Irving healthy, but they need high-level production from both almost every game.

“They're engaged and excited to get a chance to get out here and have an opportunity to play in the playoffs again,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “Last year, in that first round, Kevin was unbelievable. He was phenomenal and so was Kyrie. … This is a good sign for those guys.

“They're going to be excited, which is good for us. I don't think it's a bad thing at all."

Both showed that capability last season. Love averaged 18.3 points and nine rebounds in the first three games against the Boston Celtics before the injury early in Game 4. Irving, too, showed he could deliver: even with a bad knee, he had six games with at least 20 points, including 30 against Boston, 30 points and six assists against Chicago and 23 points, seven rebounds and six assists against Golden State.

But that didn’t always translate throughout this season’s 82-game schedule – and Irving missed Cleveland’s first 25 games rehabbing his surgically repaired kneecap.

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“I just had to be patient, understanding that I had to take it one game at a time being injured and obviously going to through the playoffs injured,” Irving said. “Got a chance to play in 53 games which I’m really grateful for and thankful for that we just had a great medical staff that did an unbelievable job of getting me prepared for coming into the postseason healthy and I just feel like I’m in a good place.”

For a team with 57 victories, the Cavs’ season was marked by inconsistency, and Irving and Love were a part of that. There were times when the Cavs didn’t look like a cohesive team and times when the Love-Irving-LeBron James partnership didn’t flourish as anticipated.

Of course, there were times when that group excelled, too. The Cavs still had the fourth-best offense, the 10th-best defense and fourth-best net rating.

Among the Cavs’ three-man lineups with regular minutes, James, Love and Irving had the 10th-best net efficiency rating at plus-seven. James was part of every top-six three-man lineup, and Love and Irving were part of several top three-man lineups.

“Confident in my ability,” Love said. “Just getting into a great rhythm shooting my shots in the last two or three weeks so just want to continue to do that (and) shoot my shots that I get this series.

“More than anything just being aggressive and picking my spots, whether it’s going to the basket or shooting my shots in the first quarter. Just getting my game going and my mentality throughout my 30-35 minutes just always aggressive and going to the basket.”

The performance of Love and Irving will be followed closely for as long as the Cavs are playing.