WILD FINISH IN WASHINGTON
‘He did some strongman stuff,’ Lowry says of 41-point, 11-rebound game
Kawhi Leonard plays ‘like a superstar’ with 41 points in win over Wizards,
There is a common theme to almost any discussion with Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse when the subject of Kawhi Leonard comes up.
Yes, the coach says, Leonard is an extraordinary talent having an exceptional year, yet Nurse is always hinting that there’s a bit more Leonard could be providing. His comfort level with his teammates and his role are ever evolving and ever improving, but there’s still another level to go.
And then Leonard goes out and has another crazy good game, making plays and reads and shots and defensive plays he hasn’t made before and you think, yep, Nurse might be on to something.
Sunday was a perfect case in point. Leonard made a series of “holy crap” moves that point to him being even better, more versatile, more comfortable than he has been.
“I know when I’m standing over there, I like watching him play, I don’t want to miss it,” Nurse said last week. “So our guys, they weren’t used to watching this guy kind of dissect people, and they have been watching. Again, I don’t think he’s been in this situation as much, where he’s got the ball and he’s trying to figure out where the pieces are moving, and seeing so many bodies come at him, and having to find it.
“He kind of played, he was rusty, then he started scoring. And then teams all of a sudden started sending multiple people at him and he didn’t do a great job of getting it out of there. And then all of a sudden he started figuring that out. You can see it kind of evolving.”
On Sunday, in a 41-point gem of a game in a 140-138 double overtime victory over the Washington Wizards, Leonard did a bit of everything:
He patiently waited out a post-up double team in the first quarter, spotted an open Serge Ibaka and calmly passed off for a three-pointer.
With the ball at the elbow and defenders about to swarm him, Leonard waited a split second before rifling a pass to a backdoor-cutting Pascal Siakam for a baseline dunk.
Leonard went up in traffic between a couple of Wizards in the third quarter, simply outmuscled two defenders and ripped away an offensive re- bound that he kicked out to start a play that led to another three-pointer.
With the game in the balance, he scored 11 straight points spanning the end of the fourth quarter and all of the first overtime period, missing a potential game-winning shot he makes far more often than not.
On the game’s decisive basket, a Serge Ibaka three-pointer with about 14 seconds left, Leonard rebounded his own miss, knew where to look for an open teammate and fed Ibaka perfectly for his fifth assist of the night.
“Kawhi really led us, took over the game,” Kyle Lowry told reporters. “Some unbelievable rebounding, strongman stuff. He did some strongman stuff.”
“I think tonight he played like a superstar, that’s how we need him to play,” Ibaka said.
Leonard has now scored 20 or more points in 19 straight games and has had 30 or more in nine of them. He’s shooting 52 per cent from the field and 39 per cent from three-point range in that stretch and has had 38 steals in the same period.
Early on Leonard went to the locker room with leg stiffness, but returned to play 45 minutes.