Leonard shines on big stages
Raptors star saves his best for big games, and that augurs well for the post-season
A former Raptors head coach, the one who also happens to be the reigning coach of the year, was fond of the expression that the NBA is a make-or-miss league. He would deploy it to explain a puzzling loss. Hey, we played well, but sometimes the shots don’t fall. On Wednesday night against the surging Philadelphia 76ers, the latest edition of “just another game” for the Raptors, they did a lot more missing than making. Toronto players who aren’t centres and aren’t Kawhi Leonard combined to shoot 14-for-50 from the field, or 28 percent. From three-point range, non-Kawhis were 3-for-23 from distance, for a sizzling 13 per cent. Oh, and also, the Rap to rs won, a 113-102 victory that extended their NBA-best record to 21-5 on the season. Last season, when the Raptors rolled to their franchisebest 59 wins, they didn’t win their 21st game until Dec. 20. The key difference between this team and previous editions is this: A group with Kawhi Leonard in the lineup can overcome a lot of problems on a given night. With the notable exception of Danny Green, the Raptors’ threepoint shooting has been middling at best, with the team ranked 21st in the NBA. Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet and C.J. Miles are all well off their normal accuracy marks. And yet, they just keep winning.
Some of that is because the team still plays good defence, and it still knows how to exploit matchups inside, and it trusts the math that says if you still keep hoisting threes, then eventually a spurt of buckets made will changethegame.
Head coach Nick Nurse said after Wednesday’s game that, on a night when Lowry and Green were 0-for-8 from three-point range at the half, he still knew they had been taking the right shots. But, clank. And clank again. “I was recruiting at halftime to see if I could find a guy to make one,” Nurse said.
Chris Bosh was sitting courtside, it was noted. “I asked him,” Nurse said with a grin. That the head coach could afford to be sanguine was due in large part to Leonard. He hit five of his six three-point attempts on a 36-point, nine-rebound, five-steal night. He also utterly terrorized Philadelphia’s Ben Simmons on the defensive end, limiting him to eight points, 11 assists, and seven turnovers. Nurse admitted afterward that for all the “just another game” talk, Leonard is able to raise his performance for the bigger stage. “For him, it’s interest level,” Nurse said. “There are bigger games than others.”
All of which makes sense. Leonard, 27, went to the NBA Finals with San Antonio as a 21-year-old rookie, and he was the MVP of the finals a year later. He relishes playing in big games, judging by his performance in them, which is all we can do since no one has any idea what he’s thinking.
The defining question of this franchise — can they do it in the playoffs? — won’t be answered for several months. But for many seasons now, even as they changed from NBA afterthought to contender, they have lacked the kind of star who could simply take over the game against high-level competition. The Raptors, for now, have that guy. He wears the No. 2 on his jersey.