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NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CAVALIERS vs CELTICS

May 18, 2018

Kevin Love

Cleveland, Ohio: Practice Day

Q. How much will being at home help?
KEVIN LOVE: I think it'll help a lot. I mean, you saw in the first two games Boston using their crowd. They played extremely well at home. I think us just being back off of the three-day break and being back at the Q will be huge for us.

Q. The Celtics' defense, what are they doing? Is this the least comfortable the Cavs have been offensively?
KEVIN LOVE: I think they just do a really good job of contesting shots. They've been physical the entire Playoffs, and Brad Stevens is going to put -- not only on the offensive end but defensive end put them in really great positions to succeed. I think their strength is their entire team. They play extremely well. Guys are stepping up throughout the course of the Playoffs. Like I said, we just have to bring it at home and make sure we come out and are in attack mode.

Q. Are they defending you differently than they did in the regular season?
KEVIN LOVE: I don't know, I just think that they have really executed on both sides of the ball. I mentioned postgame after Game 2 that they were getting to a lot of 50/50 balls that we weren't, and those are ones that we have to really pick up. Like I mentioned, those are the ones you have to get at home, as well. They took care of home court, and now we just have to do the same in Game 3.

Q. Kyle said that there have been moments of frustration this season because the bar is set so high here. Do you feel that way, too?
KEVIN LOVE: Well, I mean, it's been said it's felt like a number of seasons in one. Frustration has -- it's always going to happen within a season. I mean, it's 82 games. There's highs and there's lows. I think the expectation is very high here because of the talent that we have and the group of veterans that we have and what we believe we're capable of. I think anytime you lose, there's going to be some frustration and ways to get better, and guys need to pick up their level of play, but that's all the way across the board.

Q. How do you get the ball moving more on the offensive end of the floor? I think you guys had 36 assists on 68 field goals, and Boston was like in the 50s on 85. How do you ramp those assist numbers up and get the flow going offensively?
KEVIN LOVE: That's actually something we've been working on the past few days, just making sure that we have a lot of movement, we're not stagnant. There have been times throughout this run so far, especially in the second half, where we've either thrown the ball into Bron and myself and we've kind of stopped. We're finding ways to just get the ball to the next side. If it's swung, don't go back to the same side, kind of cross-grain it, get it to the next man, and kind of make those swing-swing passes because you're seeing that a lot. You see it in the Western Conference games with both those teams. Boston is doing it a lot, so we need to follow suit and do that, as well, get better shots.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about you guys matching their physicality. Is there a fine line or any kind of danger in doing that, that you kind of take yourselves out of your own game?
KEVIN LOVE: Maybe, and I think we talked about it yesterday, too, just the -- each game in the Playoffs is so different, and you never know how it's going to be officiated, but I think just their intensity has been very high, not to say ours hasn't been, but they use their crowd to their advantage, they play physical basketball, and were able to get to a lot of possessions that it seems like when you have energy and you play extremely hard, the ball sometimes seems to find you.

Q. Have you seen games where the pace hasn't been what you wanted?
KEVIN LOVE: I think anybody that's been here or been around knows that Ty [Lue] always stresses that. Not looking at the bench when they score, there's a mess-up, or a breakdown on the defensive end, getting that ball out, miss or make, and playing with pace. That's something that we've always preached here. We feel like you've seen that they've been able to contest so many of our shots, and that always brings the percentages down. When we play with pace, whenever we let Bron play downhill and those other guys play downhill, we're able to open up the floor and get those shots that we want and shoot a higher percentage. So I think that's key for us, and that is also something else that we stressed not only in our film session but in practice the last few days.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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