Cavs need to talk about Kevin

CLEVELAND – On Tyronn Lue’s way back to the coach’s office, a coy smile danced across his lips. It told a reporter simply: Nice try. Kevin Love, the $100 million man, could be free of concussion protocol for Game 4, but medical clearance wouldn’t yet guarantee his starting job back in these NBA Finals.

Asked about how he plans – if at all – to reincorporate Love back into these Finals on Friday night, Lue told The Vertical: “I haven’t thought about it.”

In other words: no endorsement for the embattled power forward. In the hour after the Cleveland Cavaliers had come back to life in these NBA Finals – a 120-90 victory over the Golden State Warriors in Game 3 on Wednesday night – Lue did nothing to diffuse the drama.

This has been the story of Love’s jagged Cavaliers career, two years of stops and starts, major and mild injuries, disconnection and dissatisfaction. Sometimes, Love’s been rolling. Sometimes, Love’s been less than embraced.

Once again, Love’s on the brink. Once again, the Cavaliers are asking themselves: In the chase for the championship, the moment of truth, are we better with or without him?

Here had been a complete, crushing victory at the Q, the kind of commanding performance needed to end a seven-game losing streak to the defending champions. Richard Jefferson had substituted for Love in the lineup and delivered an inspired, inventive performance: nine points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals. He defended deftly, delivered the perfect complement to LeBron James (32 points), Kyrie Irving (30) and J.R. Smith (20).

“I gave the game ball to R.J.,” James said.

Just what Love needed. There was no longing for Love – which there seldom is with James. To a man, the Cavaliers gushed over Jefferson, and something you didn’t hear out of them: The assumption that Love takes back the job on Friday night. If Love’s deemed cleared of his concussion, Lue didn’t rush to proclaim that Jefferson’s terrific Game 3 performance would land him back on the bench.

“He gave us speed,” Lue said of Jefferson. “He gave us physicality on Harrison Barnes.”

Which was important, because of the residual allowance available to the Cavaliers on defense. Lue slid James over to cover Draymond Green, who had his worst game of the series. Jefferson, who in his 15 seasons in the NBA played with contenders in New Jersey and San Antonio, is an excellent teammate. He refuses to campaign to keep the assignment, refuses to make a case to usurp a max-contract man.

“I saw how pissed off he was when he wasn’t able to be cleared in time,” Jefferson said. “Kevin wanted to be on the court.”

How dramatic of a change could be coming for these Cavaliers? Perhaps this was something Lue had to take to sleep with him. He’s coached these Cavaliers unwilling to let salaries and stature dictate decisions.

Perhaps the Cavaliers are pushing to something the Golden State Warriors ultimately decided three summers ago: They were better trying to win a championship without Kevin Love than with him. The Warriors passed on a Klay Thompson-Love deal with Minnesota, understanding now that it would’ve been the death knell for the Warriors’ championship aspirations.

Now, Love is 27 years old and in the first year of a five-year, $110 million contract extension. When Love agreed to the deal over the summer, some close to him insisted: He had little, if any, expectation that he would complete that contract in Cleveland. When it was time to find the next scapegoat, post-David Blatt, Love had been conditioned to believe it would be him.

Perhaps that’ll come this summer, but for now there’s the concussion protocol, Game 4 and a chance for redemption. Kevin Love was livid with the doctors telling him he couldn’t play on Wednesday, but no one messes with the brain. Nevertheless, a looming question hangs over Game 4: With or without Kevin Love? On his way out of The Q on Wednesday, I had to ask Ty Lue one more time: “No thought at all about Love, huh?”

“No, sir,” Lue said with a sly smile, and he started walking away, walking toward Game 4 and Friday night, toward one of the biggest choices of his young coaching life.