Cavs’ Love continuing way through concussion protocol

His desperate group will once more head back to the drawing board in an attempt to do the seemingly unthinkable: Steal a potential closeout Game 5 in what will undoubtedly be a very raucous Oracle Arena.

Love was elbowed in the head during Game 2, continued playing, then later removed himself from that game and was placed in the league’s concussion protocol.

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love smiles during practice for Game 4 of basketball’s NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors in Cleveland, Thursday, June 9, 2016.

Love is averaging 16.5 points and 9.4 rebounds in this postseason and played a pivotal role in getting the Cavs to this point.

With Jefferson defending Harrison Barnes, LeBron James guarded Green, who finished with just six points on 2-of-8 shooting.

But go ahead and read that back to yourself: The Warriors ran over the league using pace and shooting, but the Cavs, when they deigned to break from trot to gallop, played their game almost as well as the defending champs.

Kevin Love was on the floor Thursday at Quicken Loans Arena, taking jumpers and going through post-up drills. “I don’t know what coach Lue is going to go with, but Kevin is our guy [who] helped us get to this point, and we’re going to stick by him”. “We miss his rebounding”.

We will see if the Cavaliers can channel all that frustration into the best performance of their season on Monday night. While he can not be medically cleared until Friday, according to Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal team sources believe that Kevin Love will return to the lineup.

They had positive things to say about Richard Jefferson, who replaced Love in the starting lineup. We had a great shootaround yesterday.

“We’ve tried a lot of different lineups that haven’t worked”, explained Lue.

But it’s critical that the Cavaliers make the most of their opportunity to even the series at home, and if Lue feels that the team’s best chances to do so include lineups with Love on the sidelines, he won’t be afraid to sit one of his top players with so much at stake. Love was publicly ruled out for the game Wednesday afternoon after being listed as questionable the evening before.

James read the anguish in Love’s face. Postgame cameras showed an excited Love greeting his teammates as they reached the locker room. It’s not about him, he wants this for the team. After his workout, Love will need to be cleared by doctors who are satisfied there is no danger in playing.

Love was recruited to the Cavaliers by LeBron James as to be part of a “Big Three” including Kyrie Irving, and Love – a three-time all-star with the Minnesota Timberwolves – is in the first year of a five-year, $113-million contract he earned with the idea that he could help James bring a championship to Cleveland.

“I think for me to go out and be who I am and play as true to the game and as hard as I can and try to lead this team, that’s who I am”, James said.

“It’s not adversity. We dealt with that same nonsense talk in the Eastern Conference Finals”.

Contextually, the Cavs may be better off with Jefferson and now they have an important decision to make. We just knew that we had to take care of business for him, and we did that. “We dedicated that game to him”.