NBA Finals Game 2: Four Takeaways

4. Concussions are fuzzy

Late in the second quarter Kevin Love took an accidental elbow to the back of the head from Harrison Barnes as both went after a rebound. It looked bad at the time; Love crumpled to the floor and lay in the fetal position as play continued, ultimately ending with Draymond Green driving for a layup and foul over the prostrate Love.

Love played out most of the quarter, including hitting a three-pointer just a few minutes later. He also began the second half on the floor but just a few minutes into the half, after a possession of confused defense that basically had him wandering around the middle of the floor, Love headed straight to the bench and removed himself from the game.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter it was announced that the Cavaliers had placed Love in the league’s concussion protocol. The protocol requires a player to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours at rest before they can begin a return-to-participation protocol which requires them to move through an escalating series of physical activities without experiencing any symptoms. The league sets no timeline for how long the return-to-participation protocol needs to last, and it could theoretically be completed in a single day, again, after 24-hours of being symptom free at rest.

Even at the most speedy and optimistic sequencing of this recovery timeline, Love is likely to miss Game 3 on Wednesday night.

The truth though is that Love’s ability to play again in this series is of secondary importance to his long-term health and recovery. This incident, and how it is handled by the league and the Cavs’ medical staff over the next week, will no doubt spark more debate about the effectiveness of the league’s protocol. There are legitimate questions. The league’s vague language allows the return-to-participation protocol to be completed in a single day but best practice, as defined by the 4th International Conference on Concussion in Sport, recommends that the process take a full week.

Concussions are difficult to diagnose and very little is black and white about this process. Diagnosis and application of treatment requires some measure of judgement by medical professionals. The problem is that this allows for, at the very least, the appearance of conflict between competing interests — players who don’t report symptoms, medical staffs who are pressured to push their judgements toward what works best for the team. I don’t mean to call anyone’s ethics into question but the fact is that the possibility for risky decision-making is built into the current system.

Here’s hoping Kevin Love is back on the floor for the Cleveland Cavaliers soon, but only when he is completely healthy.

Next: 3. Warriors winning in the paint