CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Kevin Love’s pregame workouts moved to the practice floor Wednesday afternoon.
Love, who has been sidelined for all but two games this season due to a calf strain, participated in most of the workout held at their training facility in Independence.
“He was able to do quite a bit of the live stuff during practice today,” Bickerstaff said. “So hopefully that’s a good sign. Obviously, you wait and see how he responds [Thursday] but he’s making progress and he was with us for most of the day.”
Love has been out since Dec. 27 after he aggravated the original injury suffered during the team’s exhibition opener.
Getting Love back would be a much needed shot in the arm for the Cavs.
“It was cool. Definitely good to have K-Love back out there and being able to get up and down,” guard Collin Sexton said. “Just seeing his progress and seeing him move forward and move in the right direction, it’s amazing to see.”
Cleveland went winless on their five-game west coast trip.
They have lost eight straight and 10 of their last 12 amid the continued drama surrounding Andre Drummond, who will be in street clothes for the foreseeable future until the team can trade him.
Getting a little break – The road weary Cavs caught a temporary break when their game against the Spurs Wednesday night at home was postponed while San Antonio deals with COVID protocols following a recent positive test, which gave them an opportunity to practice.
“Obviously you do what the schedule dictates,” Bickerstaff said. “But having today as an opportunity to practice is good for us. Hopefully these days in between [games] allows our guys to get adjusted. That’s always difficult when you go play out west and with the time change that first game back is normally pretty difficult.”
Friday night, in another scheduling adjustment, they’ll host the Nuggets, who beat them up last week in Denver, 133-95.
“The NBA is not doing us any favors with who they threw at us,” Bickerstaff said. “Again, we’d rather play our games. We would’ve loved to have this time to practice but we’ll do what is necessary and we’ll go out and give it our best come Friday night.”
Delly update – Matthew Dellavedova started working out on his own while the Cavs were on the road but hasn’t begun practicing with the team.
“He is back working out,” Bickerstaff said. “He was here at practice [Wednesday]. He watched practice. He was helping talk the guys through some stuff. He says he feels really good, which is a positive, first and foremost and we’ll progress him. [We] have to be intelligent with how he feels and how he progresses from one day to the next in order to make sure there aren’t any setbacks or anything like that.”
Dellavedova suffered a concussion during the preseason opener Dec. 12 and has yet to play this season. It was the latest in a string of concussions suffered throughout his career, including one that caused him to miss the remaining 16 games of the 2018-19 season.
Where’s the D – Ove their eight-game losing streak the Cavs have allowed an average of 125.75 points per game and have lost by an average of 22 per contest.
Sexton hopes getting back on the practice floor will help them plug some on the holes on the defensive end during their upcoming homestand.
“We took a big step backwards on the defensive side of the ball,” Sexton said. “we gotta get back to our principles. We have to get back to helping one another and just pretty much play together, and that’s all we can do.
“So we’re going to take the practices [Wednesday and Thursday] and pretty much lock in because we need these games going into the next road trip so these four will definitely be big for us.”