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A few hours before the Cavaliers’ Tuesday game against the Pistons, Kevin Love took to Instagram and posted a picture of his jersey with no caption.
Love, of course, has been out since undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery on Feb. 14. He was expected to miss six weeks, but recently started traveling with the team again - a sign that his return is coming. Some took the post as a sign that he might return against Detroit - exactly a month since his surgery.
Pump the brakes, at least for now. Love will not play Tuesday, but he is getting close. He could even play on the Cavs’ upcoming road trip, which begins on Saturday against the Los Angeles Clippers and ends on Friday March 24 against the Charlotte Hornets.
“Kevin went through a 3 vs. 3 workout today, so we’ll see how that’s received,” Cavs GM David Griffin said pregame. “Everything with him is a process. Every next you take in a rehab process when you come back from surgery allows for the possibility of swelling and set backs. It’s just how it goes. That’s why the timeline was what is what, so if he doesn’t practice until the end of the week, that’s fine. It’s not something we’d consider a setback, it’s what we’d anticipate.”
“If he gets through it, and gets through it with no soreness, we’ll see what the that means. But I would anticipate that he’ll play sometime on the road trip.”
For his part, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue did say that Love would practice Wednesday.
In short: Love will be back on the court soon. If he does in fact return on the Cavs’ road trip, he’d have about three weeks of games before the playoffs start.