The defending NBA champions - Cleveland Cavaliers, are on their way to make it to their third straight appearance in NBA finals. The Cavs stormed through their first two rounds of playoffs as they swept the Indiana Pacers and the Toronto Raptors. They are playing the number one seed Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals and are already up 1-0 in that series as well.
Led by LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, Cleveland is looking like the team everybody expected them to be from the beginning of the season. But in Game 1 on Wednesday night against the Boston Celtics, it was Kevin Love who stole the show at TD Garden.
Love played his best game of this postseason and reminded every basketball fan of how good he is.
Love shows he still has it
As the Cavaliers started their Conference Finals Game 1 on the road, it was apparent from the opening tip that Kevin Love was in for a huge night. Even though he didn't shoot the ball particularly well in the first period of the game, Love was active on defense and engaged in every possession. He started off the game with a steal on the first possession and helped his team jump out to a 30-19 lead after the first quarter.
As LeBron James and Kyrie Irving stayed on the bench to start the second quarter, it was Love who carried the team from that point on. He scored 11 points in the second period, and in the third quarter he turned it on.
Love scored 18 points in the third quarter while shooting 5-for-8 in the period and making three-pointers from all over the court.
Celtics had no answer for Love's performance, and he made them pay. He finished the game with 32 points and 12 rebounds while shooting 9-for-16 from the field. Love connected on six of his nine three-point attempts and shot 8-for-9 from the free-throw line.
He had a game-high +18 rating and just two turnovers for the game.
History made
Kevin Love wasn't the only Cavalier to shine on Wednesday night against Boston since LeBron James also went off. James scored 38 points and added nine rebounds and seven assists. James and Love became the first pair of teammates since Elgin Baylor and Jerry West in 1966 to score at least 30 points each in a road playoff game against the Celtics.
Love also made more history as he became the first Cavaliers player since 1992 not named LeBron James that scored at least 30 points and grabbed at least ten rebounds in a playoff game. Other than LeBron James the last player to accomplish that was Brad Daugherty.
After the game was over, James had something to say about Love's performance, "For me, I saw that in Kevin this morning. I knew what type of game he was going to have. I mean, he came through for us. He was aggressive. He grabbed every rebound."
