Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Kevin Love suffered a non-displaced fracture in the fifth metacarpal in his left hand during the first quarter of Tuesday’s game against the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit.
Love suffered the broken bone when he got his hand tangled up in the jersey of Pistons forward Anthony Tolliver. The Cavaliers confirmed the injury in a press release and said Love would be heading back to Cleveland for further examination and consultation Wednesday.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported that Love is expected to miss six-to-eight weeks with the injury, which for the second year in a row, means he will be unable to participate in the NBA All-Star Game.
Selected to play for Team LeBron at Staples Center in Los Angeles this season, Love missed the 2017 NBA All-Star Game because of knee surgery.
Love suffered the injury at a time when he was again finding a rhythm on the offensive end of the floor.
Although Love has struggled for much of January, he scored 20 points in the win over the Pistons in Cleveland Sunday and finished off his third consecutive double-double of points and rebounds. Love converted eight of his 14 attempts from the field (.571) and four of his six looks from three-point range against Detroit.
Love scored at least 15 points in each of the games he played in December, including eclipsing the 20-point mark 10 times, as well as achieving a season-high 31 against the Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena on Christmas Day.
Love averaged 22.2 points and 10.1 rebounds per game throughout December, but the struggles were prevalent for much of January.
Over 13 games in January, Love averaged just 12.6 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, and his shooting percentage dropped from .485 in December to .426. From three-point range, Love went from making an average of 3.3 triples per game to just 1.8 since the calendar flipped to 2018.
In 47 games on the season, Love averaged 18.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and 1.7 assists over 28.5 minutes per game.
Love has converted 46.3 percent of his field goal attempts, 40.4 percent of his three-point tries and was an 88.3 percent shooter at the free-throw line. All three of those percentages represent Love’s most efficient season since joining the Cavaliers in a trade from the Minnesota Timberwolves in August of 2014.
