Season 48, Game 78
San Antonio 113, Oklahoma City 88
52-26, 6th in the West

Kawhi Leonard is awesome and getting awesomer by the game.

Do you really need more “analysis” than that? A game after being the best player on the floor that he shared with the likely and deserved MVP, Kawhi was once again the best player on the floor (and once again shared it with an MVP candidate). Again he was a one man wrecking crew on both ends, getting steals, dominating defenders in the post, dropping 3s. The only thing stopping his numbers from becoming truly eye-popping is that the team is so good with him on the floor he barely has to play 25 minutes a game. Seriously, he’s too good; his defense is so amazing, he is defending himself in the process. He can’t break his regular season career high in points (26) because the lead gets too big before he can reach point 27.

Kawhi has also forced me to create a shorthand notation for an alley oop. In over half a decade of writing about this team, I’ve barely had cause to write those words together. Now, at least once a game I have to make a note of one. (“AO”, if you’re curious.)

The best–and scariest–part of this little run of Kawhi and Spurs’ domination is that I’m starting to expect them to crush these teams. This seems like a dangerous precedent. We played the same depleted OKC team a few weeks ago and I was scared it could be another trap game or bad loss; tonight I was expecting a double digit lead in the first quarter. Which I got.

This team is firing on all cylinders right now, and it’s beautiful to see. The defense is locked in (particularly the starters), holding the Thunder to 10 points and 16 points respectively in the 1st and 3rd quarters. The offense is humming, but has a wrinkle it hasn’t had in a long time:  a player they can give it to when all else breaks down who can create his own points.

Can the playoffs start yet?

No. We have a few games left. I’m actually really excited for the next two games, as we play a home and home with Houston. They are also humming along, riding the hot play of a great player. I’m interested to see if Leonard guards Harden, how the team gears up to stop Harden, if Pop plays it close to the vest as this is a likely first or second round match-up, and how aggressively he’ll go for the wins.

The team is in a position right now where they can reach the 2 or 3 seed, but they more or less have to win out. One loss and they almost certainly can’t reach the upper half of the West and then are probably better off staying back in the 6 seed. Making the matter more interesting, beating or losing to Houston compounds this, as that is the team they are trying to catch. So each game counts as double, and they play twice. That math is pretty easy to figure out. A good chunk of the playoff seeding is riding on these next two games.

I can’t wait.