Season 48, Game 77
San Antonio 107, Golden State 92
51-26, 6th in the West
He’d steal all of your eggs and chocolate bunnies if he had to (and if it helped the Spurs win, too).
Has the evolution of a player’s perception altered as quickly and obviously as Kawhi’s defensive reputation has over the last three weeks? It’s gone from “he is a really good defender” to “haha, don’t dribble the ball near him” to “if he hadn’t missed so much time, he’d be a candidate for DPOY” to “he’s definitely on the ballot, but he can’t win it” to “Screw it, Kawhi Leonard is the NBA Defensive Player of the Year!” to “who is this hybrid alien-robot super defender?!”
It’s hard for me to gauge because I’ve seen every single play of Kawhi’s season, and to me he is the best, most important, and most impactful defender in the league. It’s not just that he plays superlative defense, it’s that his defense completely changes games. He had 7 steals last night (a career high that I’m sure he’ll best), many of which led to easy buckets in transition. These transition points off steals also tend to serve as momentum killers or momentum swingers. Curry was getting hot, so Pop switched Leonard on to him; he didn’t score again. Leonard smothered him, shadowed him, and even did the impossible: took the ball from him as clean as can be.
Kawhi might be the only player in the league for whom I rewind the game to watch his defensive plays.
He’s also the best or second-best rebounder on the team, depending on how spry Duncan is feeling. Most importantly, though, he can take the rebound and head straight to the rim, a la Westbrook.
The realization that many are coming to now, including die hard Spurs fans, is not just that Kawhi Leonard is the best defender in the league, but that he might be a Top-10 player in the league, no qualifications, end of sentence.
It’s difficult for people to comprehend that a player who doesn’t score at least 20 points per game can be a Top-10 player, but if you look at the net total that his offense and defense produces, he is easily better and more valuable than many players that average upwards of 25 ppg. Over this recent stretch, he is averaging just under 20 ppg, but he’s also probably denying about 8-12 ppg.
And just to be sure everyone figures this out soon enough, his offensive game has taken evolutionary steps over the last month. He is improving in literally every facet of his offensive game: his shooting, his passing, his court awareness and vision, his post game, his dribble drive game. While the system is still the star, he is, more and more, becoming the point around which the system revolves most frequently.
Basically, when Leonard is on the court, the Spurs are an unstoppable basketball machine-monster hybrid, running teams off the floor in the first 9 minutes of the game. When he sits, they are a good to kind-of great basketball team. Not bad, all considering.
If you’re looking for the best reason the Spurs might repeat this year–and the reason the rest of the league wants no part of the Spurs come playoff time–it’s taking the NBA Finals MVP version of Kawhi, giving him a full season, making him even better and more confident, and then injecting him back into “the Spurs’ system” to supercharge it.
And while I think the notion of “statement games” in the regular season is a bit overblown, the Spurs definitely had something to say last night to both the Warriors and the rest of the league. This season has been a dream for Golden State, a near-perfect 5 months. The Spurs just wanted to remind them that the next 2 1/2 will have to be earned, and it won’t be easy or pretty.
The trophy still resides in San Antonio. They have no intention of merely handing it over.
(AP Photo/Darren Abate)
