Cavaliers forward Kevin Love expects to be ready for the NBA playoffs in April after “very minor” knee surgery.
Doctors removed “loose bodies” from his left knee Feb. 14 and have told the All-Star he will need six weeks to recover. Love expects to have the stitches taken out this weekend, and he believes he’s on schedule to return in late March.
“There’s definitely enough time to where I can get into a good rhythm,” Love said Friday following practice in his first comments since the operation.
Love isn’t sure when he initially sustained the injury, which kept him out of last weekend’s All-Star game.
“It’s disheartening,” he said. “Obviously I wanted to be there, I wanted to play in the game, but I thought for myself, for the team and everybody’s best interests, it was good for me to get that week. It definitely did buy me some time where there wasn’t games where I was able to recover, not miss games and I put in a week of recovery before I got back.”
Love anticipates having two weeks to get ready before the postseason starts.
“I’ll go through all the protocol,” he said. “I’ll be back here on the floor, getting the stitches out, before that getting the swelling down. It’s all just part of going through it.”
Love is averaging 20 points and 11.1 rebounds in his third season with Cleveland, which hosts Chicago on Saturday night.
