How Kevin Love or Klay Thompson could swing the entire NBA finals

Kevin Love and Klay Thompson have been connected since they were little league teammates on the baseball fields in Lake Oswego, Ore. The two starred on a state title team before Thompson moved to Orange County a few years later, robbing them the chance to play for the same basketball squad, the sport that made both players professionals.

ABC showed a photo of Love and Thompson during the broadcast for Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night:

Love and Thompson are the “boring” stars for the Warriors and the Cavaliers. They’re not really that at all, but in comparison to Stephen Curry and LeBron James, or Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, it’s hard not to see them that way. When’s the last time you went looking for a Love top 10 plays video or retweeted a viral Thompson highlight? Love has his outlet passes and Thompson’s explosions — like his 60-point game this season — are revered, but both mostly thrive by doing ordinary basketball excellently.

Once, the two players seemed destined to be traded for each other, with Minnesota reportedly offering up their then superstar for a Thompson-led package before Golden State’s emergence in 2015. Those days feels so far removed from today’s landscape, but the two players are still linked. Their role isn’t just one that sacrifices some credit in exchange for their superstar teammates. It’s one that could swing this entire series.

There are degrees to how much we consider Cleveland the underdog in this series, but basic math would suggest they’re at a talent deficit: They have three All-Stars while Golden State boasts four.

Love must do his part bridging that gap for the Cavaliers to have a chance.

Last year at this time, especially when the Cavaliers infamously fell down 3-1, it seemed obvious that Love would have to go. In his first two seasons, he never fit perfectly in Cleveland, meshing poorly with David Blatt’s installed system and looking like a fraction of the superstar that dominated in Minnesota. He wasn’t a modern player, capable of guarding anyone on the floor like his counterpart Draymond Green, and that was holding the Warriors back. We even suggested trade destinations for him.

Instead, Cleveland did something that had previously been impossible. Love had nearly been run off the floor early in the series, missing a game with a concussion and playing just 12 minutes in another, but he provided nine points and 14 rebounds in the decisive Game 7.

This season, Love finally began fitting into the Cleveland scheme in a way we hadn’t seen before: His 19 points and 11 rebounds per game were both significantly better than his first two Cleveland campaigns.

For the Cavaliers to keep up with Golden State, they need two things to happen. They likely won’t play more efficiently than the Warriors, so they need more possessions and more shot attempts. And to disrupt Golden State’s hundreds of switches, they need several players who can take advantage of mismatches.

Love can do both those things. He, along with Tristan Thompson, gives Cleveland a clear rebounding edge in this series. The Warriors have been outrebounded all season — their 74.9 defensive rebounding percentage was second-worst in the league — and still won 67 games because they’re too good in other places. But Love and Thompson need mammoth efforts on the glass, especially since a missed rebound is an immediate fastbreak layup or open three the other way.

It’s a nice thought that Love could entertain Green in the post, too, but Green is just too good. But Love, who used to work defenders with his back to the basket with the Timberwolves, needs to punish anyone else guarding him when the Warriors go small. Golden State gains so much from their harried, switching defense, and they’re too smart to fool completely. But the obvious weakness is giving up mismatches, and Love can’t stay on the floor if he isn’t capitalizing.

We’ve made more jokes about Kevin Love’s Banana Republic modeling than we’ve talked about his actual play this season, and for good reason — they really had this man model a jacket called a 3-1 parka. But how Kyrie Irving became legendary for his Game 7 shot, Love needs just two good weeks that helps propel Cleveland to a series upset to cement himself forever in history.

The counterpoint to everything I just wrote above: Klay Thompson could just end the series. It doesn’t matter what Love or James or Irving does — if Thompson’s jumper decides to “touch the sun” before NASA’s just announced 2018 mission, then this series is over.

I witnessed Game 6 in person last year. I watched Thompson single-handedly torch Oklahoma City so badly that Durant couldn’t even return that summer. There’s no defense for a player when he shoots like this. You’ll look like burnt bread from the toaster Thompson signed and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do about it.

Thompson is shooting 38 percent from the floor in 12 games this postseason and 36 percent from three. Those are far below his standards. Twice, he has only scored six points, even though the Warriors won both games. Only once has he topped his points per game average in a postseason game — a measly 24-point performance in Game 3 against Portland, after averaging 22 points this year.

This feels eerily like the calm before a natural disaster, when all the animals sense that it’s coming, vacate the area, and all that’s left is unnatural silence cast against dark clouds.

Klay could be that natural disaster.

If Thompson’s shooting slump continues, it leaves the door cracked wide open for Cleveland. We know what we’ll get from Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, and we don’t expect Draymond Green to suddenly forget how to guard every player on the court. But even as three-point shooting is reaching its NBA epoch, it’s still a fickle lady. There’s still enough variation that seven games could be a small enough sample size for something really strange to happen.

Love and Thompson have been linked as baseball teammates, then trade targets, and now as competitors in the NBA finals. They went through this last year, too, of course, and you could say many of the same things.

But a year later, Love’s contributions are even more essential while Thompson’s impact is even more backbreaking. And in a series waged between behemoths, it might be one of the two we don’t talk about that swings it for good.