Kevin Love’s FIBA Play
Going into the FIBA World Championships, I thought if Kevin Love could find a way to get some minutes, he could make a positive impact for Team USA because he seems to be your prototypical International-style big man. Love crashes the boards hard, passes well, and is a legitimate threat from the outside. He hasn’t been playing a ton (only 13 minutes in each of the two games), but he has made his presence felt.
Rebounding
Kevin Love is a very good rebounder in the NBA, and we shouldn’t be surprised that this skill carried over to the FIBA Worlds, but at this pace? Love has grabbed 21 rebounds in his 26 minutes of play, which comes out to an insane 31.5 rebounds per 40 minutes (h/t J.E. Skeets via John Schuhmann). How is Love able to grab so many rebounds? By simply outworking and outsmarting his opponents:
Here, when the shot goes up, Love simply outworks his man to get past the boxout and get himself in good position for the offensive rebound.
And in this clip, Love challenges on the shot, and he is still the first man to the basketball for the rebound. In addition to just outworking everyone, Love does a very good job of boxing out his opponents:
Here Love is able to get inside position as the shot goes up, and when it comes off the rim, Love uses his butt to keep his body between his man and the basketball. He grabs the rebound despite being held, and is even able to go up for the And 1. Love is also very good at tapping the ball to himself. He basically keeps the ball alive until he can secure it himself:
One key skill you need to have to be able to tap the ball to yourself is being able to double jump, or being able to jump right after landing. And that is what Love does here, with all the traffic, he isn’t able to get both his hands on the ball. He taps it over the rim, and quickly jumps back up and secures it.
And finally here, Love actually has poor position, but when the ball comes towards him, Love is able to jump over his man (without fouling) and tap the ball to himself so he can grab the rebound.
Passing
Kevin Love is known for his outlet passing, and he has been able to bring that skill over to Turkey with him.
Here, Kevin Love gets the rebound and throws a soccer inbounds style pass over the entire defense, starting a fast break without even getting it to the point guard.
Here again, Love gets the ball out quickly to Chauncey Billups at the halfcourt line, starting the fast break. However, it isn’t just the highlight reel full court passes that make him such a good outlet passer. Love understands that he isn’t a guard and that if he gets the ball out of his hands quickly, his team has a better chance of scoring:
In this clip, the second that Love gets both his hands on the ball, he gets it out of there and into the hands of Billups. The speed of the pass allows for Billups to get into transition and find his teammate for an open three pointer.
Again, Love gets the rebound and in this clip, he gets the ball out of his hands before he even lands. Durant gets the basketball and is able to get out in transition and score on the break.
Shooting
On the offensive end, Kevin Love provides a shooting threat that his counterpart Tyson Chandler doesn’t. If teams are going to be playing off of him, Love is going to confidently take the shot, and knock it down more often than not:
In both of these clips, Kevin Love makes the catch on the outside and his defender is playing way off of him. Love takes the shot and knocks them down.
The end result of Love’s shooting ability is the defense pushing up on him and opening up the lane for Team USA’s cutters. Here, Love has the ball on the outside and this time the defense is closing out on him hard. That opens up the paint for Danny Granger who cuts to where the big man would be (if he was defending Tyson Chandler), and is able to get the bucket.
