NEW YORK — Kevin Love only played 16 minutes Sunday afternoon in Madison Square Garden. His nine-point, nine-rebound, four-assists output was nice, but not the sort of line that jumps off the page.
And yet, after the game both Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and point guard Kyle Lowry singled out Love as being the catalyst for their massive third-quarter run that set the table for their 108-101 Game 1 victory in Madison Square Garden over the New York Knicks.
“It probably started with Kevin Love’s rebounding and outlet passes,” Spoelstra said. Asked about those outlet passes, Lowry said, “It gave us an extra boost of energy and jolt.”
The first came with 8:04 left in the third quarter, with Love slinging the ball overhead to a leaping Max Strus from one block down to the other. The next came a minute later, with Love, after grabbing a rebound, firing a line drive down to a streaking Jimmy Butler, like a slant to a wide receiver. At the 5:34 mark, Love hit Butler down the court again. All three passes led to buckets and came in the midst of the Heat’s 21-7 third quarter run.
Sitting at his locker after the game, Love was asked about those passes. First he joked that he told Aaron Rodgers, the new quarterback for the New York Jets who happened to be sitting courtside, “That I have the best QBR in New York as of now.”
He then explained how he approaches when to fling the ball down the court and when to pull it back.
“There’s risk-reward. I mean, this series, maybe even more so than others, is going to be such a possession type series, possession games,” he said. “Jimmy being Megatron out there, it’s nice to have him going up and jumping and accepting that ball.”
But Love also pointed out that those passes do more than just generate highlight-making one-off buckets. During the regular season, the Knicks were one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the NBA, and it was their tenacity on the offensive glass that propelled them past the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs’ first round. In those five games, the Knicks rebounded 38.2% of their own missed shots, according to Cleaning the Glass.
As a comparison, the top rate during the regular season was 33.2.
In Game 1, the Knicks only grabbed 12 offensive rebounds, just 31.2% of their misses. That’s still a solid number, but for a team that’s struggled shooting throughout the playoffs (43.8 FG%, the worst mark of…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at FOX Sports Digital…