The Stopper

With a championship hanging in the balance, Cavs forward Kevin Love came through in the biggest moment of his life—on the court, at least—by trusting in his preparation and shutting down the greatest scorer on the planet

- Lee Jenkins

ON JUNE 19, Tyler Kandel sat at a back table at Warren 77 in New York City, eating chicken nachos and drinking craft beer. The TVs were tuned to Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and Kandel was rooting for the Cavaliers because he went to college with their power forward, Kevin Love. With 44 seconds left and Cleveland up by three, Kandel’s old friend flashed on the screen, isolated at the top of the circle against the best shooter on the planet, who dribbled figure eights 35 feet from the hoop. To everyone watching, this was the most critical moment of Love’s life. To Tyler Kandel, it ranked a distant second.

In September 2008, Kandel had just graduated from UCLA, where he played water polo. Love, a Bruins basketball star, was preparing for his first training camp in Minnesota. On one of their last nights in Westwood, they ate dinner at a sushi restaurant with UCLA small forward Josh Shipp, then walked down Levering Avenue to a party in an apartment west of campus.

Halfway down the hill, they paused. Kandel held a 40-ounce bottle of Olde English malt liquor in his left hand. Shipp was carrying his own bottle as well. Kandel, messing with his buddy, wound up to kick Shipp’s bottle. It was as if he slipped on a banana peel. “I flew up in the air,” Kandel recalls, “and my left leg went under me.” Love and Shipp cracked up as Kandel landed on his back. They did not realize that Kandel’s bottle had shattered in the fall and glass had sliced his left wrist. Kandel reflexively covered the cut with his right hand. As he released it, to check the wound, blood spewed onto the street. “I could see inside my hand, inside my wrist,” Kandel says. “The artery was split wide open.”