It’s the video clip that’s gone around Twitter about a million times in the last 12 hours with this collective reaction from NBA fans: “What are you doing Kevin Love?!”
While facing the Toronto Raptors, the Cleveland Cavaliers vet didn’t inbound the ball and just kind of tapped it in play with all the frustration that read as him basically giving up.
Now: there’s no excuse for that. Love probably knows that, and per Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, the forward apologized for his actions.
But maybe having some context will make you understand why Love did that. And here it is:
context of the Kevin Love video currently making the rounds:
• Love hurts his knee with ~2 minutes remaining in the quarter
• Love frustrated with refs shortly after that he got pushed in the back and there was no call
• Love hustled back the next defensive possession pic.twitter.com/dWtstppU4x— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) April 27, 2021
#Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff on what @kevinlove was doing at end of 3rd Q when he slapped the ball inbounds to the #Raptors, breaking open a 4-point game: "I’m not sure, you’ll have to ask Kevin. We talked about it. He apologized to his teammates for it and we’ll move on."
— Marla Ridenour (@MRidenourABJ) April 27, 2021
He got hurt on a play before, there was no call on a push in the back right before the inbounds, and as Rob Perez points out, he didn’t give up on the next chance to play defense.
In other words, not a good look, but as Bickerstaff said, he apologized, everyone’s moving on and we at least know where that came from. It wasn’t just, oh man I’m a Cleveland Cavalier in the middle of another rebuilding year.
