Kevin Love, Cavs ‘Want Respect In This League’ And Are Finding It

Kevin Love knows the Cavaliers are for real. Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo seems to agree. And Jarrett Allen says, frankly, he’s not surprised.

“We feel that if we play hard and stay true to our system that we can beat anybody,” Love said after the Cavs drubbed the defending champion Bucks on Wednesday. (Related Dribbles).

It’s hard to argue with Love. The Cavs (30-19) have won eight of nine, including three in a row. They reached 30 wins before the 50-game mark, a feat many didn’t have them accomplishing for the entire season.

They exited Wednesday night in third place in the wildly close Eastern Conference. Each of the top six teams are separated by no more than 2.5 games. The Cavs are among those who are near the top.

How about that?

Most of it has been the result of chemistry, a different player stepping up almost nightly, and team basketball in the truest sense.

There is also a fair share of good, old-fashioned confidence.

“We take challenges,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “We don’t run from anybody, we don’t back down.”

The rest of the league is taking notice that these aren’t your favorite uncle’s non-LeBron James Cavs.

“This is not the Cleveland we knew in the past years,” Antetokounmpo said. “They’re a good team. They have a better record than us right now. It’s a team that we’ve got to be careful, we’ve got to scout better and make sure we respect them even more now. They’re a playoff team and they’re fighting for the title themselves.”

Granted, the title talk is a bit much, but hey, whoever thought the Cavs would be where they are today. With this team, clearly, all is possible.

But as Love reminded everyone, it’s important for the Cavs not to get too far ahead of themselves.

“We beat a very good team (Wednesday),” he said. “But now it’s getting guys in a mindset of, can we do it again? Can we do it night in and night out? To get to where we want to go, we’ve got to do it every single night. We want respect in this league. We want teams to understand that we want to bottle this up and make something special here.”

Dribbles: Cavs Continue To Buck The Trend, Rise To Cool Heights https://t.co/0FR4TiMOVC pic.twitter.com/0hlWfJf6uI

— Hoops Wire (@WireHoops) January 27, 2022

As of this moment, Bickerstaff is in the running for Coach of the Year. Love should be considered for Comeback Player of the Year. Allen and Darius Garland are potential All-Stars, especially Garland. And Evan Mobley is frontrunner for Rookie of the Year.

Let’s keep in mind that all of this happening without guards Collin Sexton and Ricky Rubio, both a major part of things early. But both went down with knee injuries, and poof … the Cavs lost their combined 29.5 points a game.

No big deal, the Cavs seemed to say. They have just picked up things defensively.

“We had a couple things when we came into the season about our identity,” Allen said on Wednesday. “We wanted to be the hardest-working team out there and we wanted to always give 100 percent on the defensive end. I think tonight was a perfect example of that. Obviously, we have ups-and-downs, but overall, we have stuck with our identity and it’s carrying us.”

Allen is right. What the Cavs are doing is working. To a man, they appear to believe it will keep right on going. And they believe, strongly, that this is no fluke.