Kawhi versus LeBron ignites NBA
The crosstown star turns in LA now have an unavoidable NBA rivalry.
Until now, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard have largely managed to skirt rivalry talk.
The two superstars have met twice in basketball’s NBA Finals – with each winning a title and a finals MVP against the other – but a host of factors have intervened.
When James and the Miami Heat faced the San Antonio Spurs in the 2013 and 2014 finals, Spurs centre Tim Duncan was still his headlining foil. In the years since, James has battled former Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant for the title of the NBA’s best current player, and has been judged endlessly against Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time.
Leonard, meanwhile, was a certified all-NBA talent, but often an afterthought due to his injuries and five straight years without a head-to-head playoff showdown.
The Los Angeles Clippers’ 112-102 victory over the crosstown LA Lakers at the Staples Center on Wednesday made it clear that the James versus Leonard rivalry is suddenly unavoidable. During an intense opening night that saw Leonard showered with cheers and boos during introductions, the contest’s twin superstars traded highlights while standing in direct opposition in so many ways.
James rocks fashionable Nikes. Leonard rocks upstart New Balances. James dominated a week’s worth of news cycles with his commentary on China. If Leonard muttered a word, noone heard it. James’ Lakers landed his sidekick, Anthony Davis, through a protracted public recruiting campaign. Leonard plotted for his co-star, Paul George, in silence after turning down the chase to form a super team with James at the Lakers.
Importantly, James is 34 and plays with the urgency of a man who understands his clock is ticking. Leonard is 28 and plays like urgency is a mental construct that is foreign to him.
Both players execute their crafts in ways that draw every eyeball in the building. Playing in his first NBA game since March, James burst out of the gate with pent-up excitement. He scored the game’s first points on a reverse layup, quickly set up a Danny Green three and then splashed a turnaround jumper over Leonard after a few rocking dribbles. The Lakers charged to a 13-2 lead, and all the accumulated drama from six straight lottery trips seemed to evaporate.
Leonard started slow, whistled for a travel and a charging call early, but he answered soon enough. Like James,
he possesses an innate confidence that he can get to his preferred spots whenever he desires. Leonard hit eight of his 11 first-half shots to help the Clippers regain the lead before halftime, draining unblockable fadeaways from the corner and tough back-down jumpers in the paint.
‘‘I got to spots early [and] missed some little chippies,’’ Leonard said. ‘‘Then I just started making shots. I’ve been leading teams four or five years now. It’s just different for me tonight because I have a different coach, I’m in a new uniform, new play calls, new defensive structures.
‘‘Other than that, it’s just basketball, five-on-five.’’
The one-on-one battle for Los Angeles, and the Western Conference at large, is on too. James provided the voice-over for a hype video that played up the Lakers’ history of dominance and popularity, while Leonard appeared in an LA-themed New Balance commercial that included him holding a crown key chain and a provocative closing tagline: ‘‘This is his city.’’
‘‘It’s the first game,’’ James said. ‘‘The NBA is back, and everybody is trying to have the narrative of a rivalry game and a huge test.
‘‘Both teams are not who they want to be. We have a lot of room to improve. We’re a new group, a new coaching staff and a new system. It’s not a rivalry.’’ Oh, but it is.
Wednesday confirmed that Leonard has more help.
The Clippers were deeper than the Lakers even with George sidelined, as their bench won the scoring battle 60-19.
Clippers guard Patrick Beverley pranced around the court, as they off the Lakers with a series of defensive stops.
Leonard finished with a game-high 30 points, six rebounds and five assists, outpacing James’s 18 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
Leonard proved during the 2019 playoffs with champions Toronto that he is a worthy proxy for Durant, and his debut reinforced his case as basketball’s best player. By the time Leonard had conducted his postgame interview, James had hightailed it back to the locker room. Presumably, the revenge plot has already begun in earnest.
Washington Post
Donovan McNabb’s low, rumbling laugh reverberated through the phone. Had the Philadelphia Eagles’ all-time passing leader, now happily retired in Arizona, ever been through a week like this one – the fan base lashing out in disappointment, the franchise quarterback dealing with anonymous criticisms that might have come from a close team-mate, as a oncepromising season hung in the balance?
Why, yes, McNabb said. As a matter of fact, those circumstances sounded vaguely familiar.
What advice, then, would McNabb offer Carson Wentz, under siege behind the walls?
‘‘Closed ears, closed mouth,’’ said McNabb, who is set to be inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame on November 8.
In other words, don’t listen to the gossip, and don’t feed the flames.
McNabb said it is important at such a time for team-mates to see the quarterback working on his own game, not seeking out critics or trying to direct the parceling out of blame.
‘‘You should be trying to perfect your craft. What are you doing wrong? What can you correct?’’ McNabb said. ‘‘Get it cleaned up. They need to see you working on yourself, working with the offensive coordinator.’’
Wentz was asked this week how much blame he accepts for the Eagles’ struggles. ‘‘I take a lot of it. I think there’s lots of plays in these losses that I’d love to have back,’’ said Wentz, who turned the ball over three times in a blowout 37-10 loss at Dallas last Monday, falling to a 3-win, 4-loss mark. ‘‘I think everyone would say the same thing. There’s a lot of execution, a lot of good plays we leave out there.’’
Anonymous quotes, McNabb said, should be ‘‘addressed in front of everyone’’.
McNabb was at the centre of the storm more than a few times during his 11-season Eagles career. He tried several tactics in dealing with being the target of disaffected wide receiver Terrell Owens in 2005, starting with joking.
‘‘As a child growing up, I dreamed of being an actor, and now I am an actor in Days of Our Lives,’’ – and quickly moving on to directing Owens to ‘‘keep my name out of your mouth’’.
Although McNabb did face anonymous criticisms at times, Owens wasn’t anonymous, he was going on national TV shows that summer to call McNabb ‘‘a hypocrite’’, among other things, as Owens attempted to bulldoze a path off the team that wouldn’t revise his six-year contract in the second season. This is a small-town carnival compared to that circus, which ended with Owens’ release.
Wentz went over to stretch with Jeffery at the start of Wednesday’s practice, instead of staying with the other QBs, a gesture possibly undertaken for the benefit of reporters watching.
‘‘Carson stretches all the time. Next to each other every once in a while. We were just laughing, joking, having fun,’’ Jeffery said.
McNabb said Wentz should understand that ‘‘you can’t please everyone’’, and that eventually, all of this will be resolved. If you’re the 26-year-old franchise quarterback, who just signed a four-year, $NZ210 million contract extension, it will be resolved in exactly one way, he said.
‘‘Unhappy team-mates will go someplace else, and your career will continue,’’ said McNabb, whose Eagles tenure outlasted that of Owens by four seasons.
Wentz was asked if he had spoken with Jeffery, who has not acknowledged being the source of the critical ESPN report.
‘‘We’ve all had conversations and everything,’’ Wentz said. ‘‘Everyone’s good. Everyone’s going forward and on the same page.’’
Pressed on the nature of the conversations and the identities of those conversing, Wentz demurred.
‘‘That’s always handled internally. That’s not the way we like to do things, through the media like that, so we’re not going to resolve it through the media, either,’’ he said.
‘‘Those things are all in-house things, and we put ’em behind us.’’
Does he understand the interest people have in what is being said and done, as the losses mount?
‘‘Absolutely. You guys can have all the interest you want, but internally, we’re going to keep that stuff tight, and keep it tight going forward, for sure,’’ Wentz said.
‘‘We don’t like when those things happen. Without a doubt, it’s concerning. So we handle it internally and move on.’’
As Wentz deals with criticism, he can rely on a resource McNabb employed. Doug Pederson, the veteran QB McNabb learned from as a 1999 rookie, who later returned to start his NFL coaching career as an offensive assistant in McNabb’s final Eagles season. Pederson often references his time in Green Bay, backing up Brett Favre.
‘‘Doug taught me how to prepare,’’ McNabb said. ‘‘He told me things Brett went through that he wanted me to avoid.’’
In times of trouble, McNabb said he relied on advice from Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Favre and Michael Jordan, along with ‘‘guys I trained with, guys I played with at the Pro Bowl’’.
Wentz, asked about his sources of guidance through tough times, went a rung higher than Jordan.
‘‘I pray. I think we all need a lot of prayer. When things are struggling, I always look up and remember there’s a bigger picture. And obviously, my wife [Madison] is always there.’’
McNabb wondered if the anonymous criticism Wentz took last season for supposedly relying too much on tight end Zach Ertz was affecting Wentz now – Ertz hasn’t been targeted in the first quarter of any of the last three games. Wentz’s message was one that could have been delivered by McNabb, on any one of several occasions 10-to-15 years back.
‘‘We’ve been in tough spots before. The sky isn’t falling.’’
‘‘I take a lot of it. I think there’s lots of plays in these losses that I’d love to have back.’’ Carson Wentz
McClatchy