LeBron James says adversity for Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love is ‘good for them’

3:12 AM ET

TORONTO — Their stat lines equally underwhelming, the bigger competition between Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving in Saturday’s 99-84 loss to the Toronto Raptors in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Saturday is which member of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ pair had a bigger dud of an ending to their night.

Love, after putting up just three points on 1-for-9 shooting with four rebounds and two assists, sat the entire fourth quarter. The Austin 3:16 shirt Love wore as he walked out of the arena perfectly summed up his night, not for any cans of whoop-ass he opened on the Raptors, but because of his stone-cold shooting touch.

Irving, after shooting just 3-for-19 from the field (including 1-for-7 from 3) for 13 points with just one assist and three turnovers, had to be helped off the court and into the locker room before the game was finished while he clutched his chest. Irving later claimed the wind was knocked out of him by a blow from Cory Joseph, which is precisely how you could describe Toronto bringing the Cavs’ perfect 10-0 postseason streak to a screeching halt.

It had been sunny skies for the Cavs’ young duo for quite some time now. Their shared redemption from an injury-marred postseason a year ago was inspiring and seemed to be getting stronger by the day. Love logged eight double-doubles through Cleveland’s first 10 playoff games while Irving scored 20-plus points in nine of them.

Then Saturday happened and LeBron James looked like a man on an island as he has far too often since Cleveland put its Big Three together. He totaled 24 points on 9-for-17 shooting, eight rebounds, five assists and two steals while Love and Irving had their disappearing act.

As bad as it was, James — who predicted that Cleveland would face adversity somewhere …

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