Kawhi showing Raptors he’s a beast in playoffs
Toronto superstar exhibits ‘killer instinct’ that breaks the spirit of NBA opponents
In one of the rare times he said anything notable all year, Kawhi Leonard offered this nugget in early March on the grind of the regular season: “There are 82 games and for me these are just practices.”
Friends, I am here to tell you that he ain’t practising anymore. Leonard, in his first season in Toronto, had a remarkably under-the-radar season for someone who is sure to be on one of the All-NBA teams. Some of that was due to his super low-key persona and his utter lack of interest in boosting his profile. Some of it was due to his load-managed 60-game schedule; he never had an eye-popping stretch of games because he never played in a stretch of games. And some of it was due to the Toronto Raptors, as an organization, biding their way through the months between October and April.
They probably kept biding a bit too long. Leonard played only 34 minutes in Toronto’s Game 1 loss to Orlando, even though that game was tight for most of the second half. He was good, but in a regular-season way: solid, capable, nothing too remarkable one way or the other.
But then, kaboom. Much like Raptors fans have been tortured in previous seasons when Playoff LeBron decided to show up and leap buildings and smash jet fighters out of the air with his fists, Playoff Kawhi was fully operational in three of Toronto’s four straight wins, and he was fighting an illness in the other. He was devastating on the offensive end, pouring in spot-up mid-range jumpers, bullying his way to the hoop and, for a final coup de grace, nailing all five of his three-point attempts in the series-clinching Game 5 win. As much as the Raptors will face a Philadelphia 76ers team in the second round with a lot more top-end talent than the Magic, they remain the clear favourites, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that Leonard is on their team. He has already reminded the NBA that he’s an MVPtype talent, even if he’s been in semi-hibernation for the past couple of years, and the Raptors have foundered in the playoffs before in part because they have never had someone who can do what he does.
Fred VanVleet was asked on Friday if he was surprised by the way Leonard had raised his game against Orlando and he said no, he has seen the kind of player he is up close for a while now. “But that killer instinct,” he said, warming up to the subject now. “The biggest thing that I saw in the last series was that you could see him just taking those guys’ spirits away and breaking those guys spirits, and no matter what they really did, it didn’t faze him or affect him.”
Only the Magic can describe the state of their spirits, but it’s certainly true that they never came close to figuring out how to stop him. Their best bet, it turned out, was finding out whatever caused his illness between Games 2 and 3 and trying to engineer an outbreak of that. “He was able to break their will, so to speak, and that’s what superstars do,” VanVleet said. The site Basketball Reference has a statistic, Game Score, that compiles everything a player does on both ends of the floor and boils it down to a number. DeMar DeRozan cracked 30 once as a Raptor in the playoffs. Kyle Lowry has done it twice in the post-season. Leonard did it twice in three games against the Magic and would have done it a third time had he not played just 33 minutes in the Game 5 blowout. Nick Nurse said on Friday watching Leonard up close has been an experience.
“I’m not sure I’ve seen a guy be able to decide he wants to make a defensive play and then go do it,” the Raptors coach said. “I’m not saying he can do it all the time, usually you have to have the opportunity present itself, but somehow I think he finds ways to make big plays at the defensive end — whether it’s just with pressure or shooting the gap or deflecting a ball or just going and taking it from somebody.” This was something of a hallmark for Leonard in his last healthy season in San Antonio (2016-17), when his I’m-takingthis-ball-now steals became an internet sensation.
“Those are my favourite ones, when he just decides there’s a guy and he goes and attacks him and tries to take it from him,” Nurse said. “It’s not easy to do, and he can do it once in a while, and it’s pretty intimidating, too.” Asked about VanVleet’s breaktheir-spirit comment, Nurse said what he saw with Leonard was an increased intensity on the defensive end.
“And the best thing about that was, I think he found out that the harder he played defence, the harder he was playing offence as well, with more force. So he kind of got to a level of speed at both ends,” Nurse said. “And the big thing is, they’d be making charges back from 15 or 18 down, and he’d score three (baskets) in a row. That’s hard to handle, mentally. We’ve been through that before, I think.”
They sure have, like with that LeBron fellow in 2016. And 2017. And also 2018.
It’s quite a thing, to have one of those guys on the Toronto side of the floor for this playoff run. Lowry, casual as ever, says it has been fun to watch.
“I knew he was good, but seeing him every day and every game and what he can do defensively is crazy,” Lowry said. “It’s pretty cool.”