Chris Haynes of The Plain Dealer: Though Kevin Love has still found ways to be productive for the Cavaliers, after the 96-92 loss preseason finale loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, he told Northeast Ohio Media Group that he needs more looks inside to get his game back. "My entire life I played the game from inside-out," Love explained to NEOMG. "So the more touches I can get inside to get myself going, the better. I'm not accustomed to starting out a game shooting a three, so it's just something that I see. I'm 26-years-old and I've been playing basketball for quite a long time. Just finding ways to mix it up. If anything, keeping it around the basket a little bit more and the offense will allow me to get offensive rebounds. That will be tough for teams with Andy [Varejao] and myself and Tristan [Thompson] in there." Love has been roaming the three-point area more than in year's past. His shooting ability creates spacing, giving LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters the necessary room to maneuver.

Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal: "Yes, I expected to come back to Memphis. But everything happens for a reason. I’m where I’m supposed to be now and I truly believe that. I’ll make the most of it.” – Cavs swingman Mike Miller, reflecting on free agency this past summer.

Eric Koreen of the National Post: Dave Hopkinson was in his early 20s, and had a full-time job with the Toronto Argonauts. For a kid looking to work in the sports industry, that was a prime position in the first half of the 1990s: a salary and benefits with a professional sports team. Still, when the Toronto Raptors were born, Hopkinson gave up the certainty of the Argonauts for something considerably more risky with the city’s newest team. He turned 24 on his first day with the Raptors: Nov. 1, 1994, about a year before the club’s first regular-season game. “They put 24 of us in a phone room, with a chair and a desk and a phone, and they had us sell season seats for the new Raptors franchise,” Hopkinson recalled recently in his office at 50 Bay Street, the building beside the Air Canada Centre. “They said, ‘The top four of you will get full-time sales jobs, and 20 of you will leave.’ It was on a week-to-week basis: for a few hundred bucks a week, come in and sell for the new franchise. I was one of the top four and got one of those full-time jobs. Here we are.” Hopkinson is now the chief commercial officer of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and one of just five employees to have stuck with the organization since its birth. The others: manager of team services Doreen Doyle, medical director Dr. Paul Marks, photographer Ron Turenne and Ryan Bonne, the trainer of the team’s unassailable mascot.

Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Make no mistake, the Hawks signed Kent Bazemore for his defense. While that will be his main role with the team, the guard is showing his new coaches and teammates that there is more to his game. It’s a slow process as he battles back from offseason foot surgery and reconstructs his jump shot. ... Bazemore has shown signs that he can get to the rim. He is 3-of-14 from the field this preseason, with every made shot coming in the paint. He has also drawn five shooting fouls and is 4-of-10 from the free-throw line. It’s a work in progress, as he has yet to make an outside shot. Bazemore has worked on his jump shot with assistant coach Ben Sullivan. He said the work has been “everything from my feet all the way to my follow-through.” If Bazemore can develop a consistent jump shot, it will make his ability to drive to the basket that much more effective. ... The 6-foot-5 Bazemore likely will play 12-15 minutes per night. He has averaged 11 minutes in his four exhibition appearances. He played 15 minutes against the Pistons on Saturday and 12 against the Hornets on Monday as Budenholzer began to fine-tune his rotation for the start of the regular season.

Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: Dwight Howard sat out the game in his return to Orlando in the second half of a back-to-back, but he said he still has warm memories of his time with the Magic, despite the often awkward split in which he was eventually traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. Though Howard has been gone for just two seasons, there are no coaches or players left from the center’s last Magic team. “I grew up in Orlando,” Howard said. “We had a lot of great memories. No matter how it ended. I enjoyed my time here. I’m just happy with my time here. I see the progress with this team and where they’re trying to go.” Though he sat out Wednesday night’s 90-89 victory, Howard said he is happy with his progress physically. Asked if he had returned to where he had been before the back problem began in 2012, Howard said, “I’m getting there. It’s a process. Some days I feel really good. There are days where I still feel bad, but all that is changing."

Derek James of 1500ESPN.com: Over the past few years the NBA has been moving towards becoming a 3-point shooting league and the Timberwolves have struggled to keep up. Last season, the team averaged 21.4 threes per game, good enough for 16th in the league. On paper, that seems like a modest number, but only converted 34.1 percent of them-- 26th in the entire league. Sure, half the league is taking more per game, but it's a problem if only four teams make a lower percentage of them. This preseason it appears the Timberwolves are taking a different approach offensively. "I think the number one thing is that, I thought last year we were last in the league in threes and we took a lot of them," said head coach Flip Saunders. "You know, don't take threes you think you can't make." When the Timberwolves opened their preseason against the Pacers, they attempted just 13 threes and made four of those. Tuesday? Just eight, but they made half of them. Saunders praised the team's offensive discipline after the victory by saying, "I think you shoot 50 percent, getting the shots you want, and get 13 turnovers. We play. If guys have threes we'll take them."

Robert Morales of the Long Beach Press-Telegram: Including his 0-for-5 performance Wednesday, forward Matt Barnes has made just 3 of 36 shots from the field. Doc Rivers admitted before tip-off it is somewhat worrisome. “It’s a concern, yeah,” said Rivers, who said Barnes will likely be his opening-day starter at small forward. “Probably more for Matt than me. I just need Matt to be a great defender, run the floor, be a great slasher. But I don’t care who you are, when you’re 3 for 31 and you’re going to keep telling him that, I’m sure and everyone else is ... you’re human. That has to affect you. It’s no doubt. It would be nice to see the ball go in.”

Janis Carr of The Orange County Register: After a two-plus hour bus ride to Citizens Business Bank Arena, Kobe Bryant sat in the locker room instead of watching Julius Randle play his best game in a Lakers uniform. The rookie forward scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting and pulled down eight rebounds in a 94-86 victory against the Blazers. Randle’s team-leading performance came one day after he was nearly invisible against Phoenix, going 1 for 5 for three points. “Every game he seems to get a little bit better,” Scott said. “And that’s what you want. Again, we all tend to forget that he’s 19 years old, so you have to give him a little bit of slack at times, but I don’t.” Randle almost made the Ontario crowd forget that Bryant wasn’t in the lineup. Most of the 7,174 were content to watch Randle go coast-to-coast on three baskets, and Jeremy Lin add five assists and 13 points.

Marc Berman of the New York Post: Speaking in the locker room before the Knicks’ 103-100 win over the the Wizards at the Garden on Wednesday night, Andrea Bargnani said, “Injuries are always frustrating." Bargnani hasn’t played since the preseason opener. A day later in practice, he tweaked the hamstring and missed his fifth straight preseason game Wednesday. He will also miss the finale in Montreal and it looks as if he won’t be ready for the season-opening back-to-back games against Chicago and Cleveland next Wednesday and Thursday. “We’re working every day to get it ready to go on the court," Bargnani said. The injury hurts doubly because the club is learning the triangle offense. “Obviously keep up with the team by watching a lot of video doing as much as possible not to get behind," Bargnani said.

Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald: Rajon Rondo continues to make “steady” progress, according to coach Brad Stevens. Stevens revealed before last night’s game that the point guard has been participating in “limited” contact in practice with a heavily padded left hand. Rondo had surgery to repair a fracture four days before the opening of training camp. “I can’t say when he’ll be back, but he’s progressing well,” Stevens said before last night’s exhibition finale. Stevens added that Rondo has been taken off the floor when practices have morphed into full contact. “Still not fully good to go, but he’s working that way,” said Stevens. “He can do some of (contact).”

Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press: Stan Van Gundy thinks there's a larger issue than the NBA's lottery system. The Detroit Pistons president and coach said league rules dictating maximum contracts have done more to hurt the league's competitive balance than teams tanking. "I think the thing that's been the biggest impediment to parity in this league has been the individual maximum on players' salaries," Van Gundy said Wednesday. "By artificially limiting the best players' salaries is what has allowed people to put two and three stars together. Take that out, keep the cap where it is, keep the luxury tax right where it is and have no individual maximum on players." He added it would make for a fairer system and make it harder to put more than one star on one team.