Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves scored 18 points and 13 rebounds in his debut match for the team on Monday 14th July in the final game of the NBA Summer League. Love was drafted last month in the 5th overall selection.
Love’s team was however defeated by the Mavericks 88- 74. The Timberwolves lost the game leaving Love’s efforts of scoring a league high 13 rebounds in vain.
The Mavericks who got off to a slow start and were behind by 6 points in the beginning of the first quarter managed to end the quarter with a 7 point lead at 19-6. The Mavericks were at a 33-14 advantage halfway in the second quarter increasing their lead to 24 with JaJuan Smith scoring 19 points and Shan foster scoring 17 points.
Love, who is 6’ 10” and plays forward scored four points and equaled the number of fouls he committed in the first quarter. He committed only two fouls in the second quarter and finished with 10 second half points. Jerry Sichting, Minnesota’s summer team coach did not seem too bothered with Love’s slow start. He said, “We just didn’t get him the ball much early in the game, We didn’t have many set plays to get the ball inside to him. But he’ll do some good things for us. He’s a good player.” Love on the other hand seemed disappointed with the defeat. Love said, “I was shaking out there a little bit because it hadn’t sunk in that I was a NBA player.”
Love was the Pac-10 Player of the year and led the Bruins to the UCLA final four last year, also had an average of 17.5 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.