National Basketball Association

LeBron James crushed Kevin Love's spirit with a brief verbal tirade

Published Jun. 14, 2016 2:00 a.m. ET

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Andrew Lynch

Game 5 was a rough one for Kevin Love.

While LeBron James and Kyrie Irving made history by becoming the first teammates to score 40 points each in a Finals game, Love finished with just two points in 33 minutes and didn't contribute a whole lot more than that to the Cavaliers' 112-97 win over the Warriors. Of course, maybe that's because the poor man's spirit was completely destroyed by LeBron James in the first quarter:

It's not quite as bad as it looks; Love appears to be explaining how he had his hands up on defense rather than asking for a high-five and getting completely shut down in the process. But it's still pretty bad. Look at his eyes when LeBron starts yelling:

"Hello, sadness, my old friend ... "

No, really look:

"... I've come to get yelled at by you again ... "

That is the expression of someone who just wants to help. What does Love have to do to get LeBron to ... er ... love him? James picked Love to join him in Cleveland. He had to know that for all of the power forward's offensive skills, he can be a liability on the defensive end. Love didn't ask for this. It took a "Come to Jesus" moment for him to re-sign in Cleveland anyway.

Love made it easy on Tyronn Lue and essentially benched himself after coming back from a concussion in Game 4. He's done everything he's been asked -- other than being capable of playing the role that Chris Bosh did for LeBron in Miami.

And for that, apparently Love will always come up short in LeBron's eyes. We're really starting to feel bad for the guy. He's the new Mario Chalmers.

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