Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season

4. Kevin Love was not able to fill the void

When Kyrie Irving left, it was just LeBron James. Kevin Love was always the third piece and he was always the player that people would put the blame on when they thought he wasn’t doing enough.

This year, the Cavs moved Love to the center position. It was a position that he hadn’t played since he was a rookie.

He finished his season averaging 17.6 points and 9.3 rebounds per game. Although he did not have a good series against the Boston Celtics, he averaged 19 points per game and 11.3 rebounds in the Finals. It was just not enough though. Love was not able to provide support for LeBron during the season.

He missed 23 games during a season where the Cavs just did not have the production to win games.

In the playoffs, he played inconsistently. In a Game 1 loss to the Indiana Pacers in the first round, Love only scored nine points. With the series tied and with the chance to go up 3-2 against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, Love played 31 minutes and only scored 14 points.

In the two games that the Cavs had to win in order to go to the Finals against the Celtics, Love was injured and LeBron had to do it himself. Kevin Love is injury-prone and had problems showing up during games. His inability to fill the void was one of the factors in the lack of support that the Cavs had.