Oh, what might’ve been with Leonard
Now we never will know. And that’s a shame.
It’s a shame Kawhi Leonard backed onto a teammate’s foot on a riveting Sunday afternoon at Oracle Arena, and it’s a shame he landed on Zaza Pachulia’s foot on his next shot.
It’s a shame the way, hours later, he sat with a towel draped over his shoulders in front of his locker, not moving a muscle, just staring straight ahead.
It’s a shame that he almost certainly was thinking about what might have been, instead of what was. And it’s a shame not only that Leonard never will know, but also that none of us will, either.
We never will know whether the Spurs would have prevailed if Leonard hadn’t sprained his left ankle in the third quarter of what turned into a 113-111 Golden State escape in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
We never will know whether Steph Curry and Kevin Durant would have brought the Warriors all the way back from a 25-point deficit, anyway, or whether Leonard and the Spurs would have pulled away and forced them to adjust, regroup, and maybe doubt themselves heading into Game 2.
And in this long-anticipated matchup of the two best Western Conference franchises of this decade, we never will know how this series will have played out if both teams, and not just one, had full use of their Most Valuable Player candidates.
These conference finals are not over yet. But the series is changed now, surely and irrevocably. There is no sense denying that.
There is no sense denying that this was the second time in a week that Leonard sprained his ankle, and that expecting a full recovery by Tuesday’s Game 2, or even by the end of this series, is unrealistic.
Leonard, the expressionless corn-rowed android who was not supposed to be vulnerable to human frailty, looked like at the very least he was going to give us a series-long show.
He might not have been able to keep pace with Durant and both Splash Brothers for two weeks, but he was going to try. And as he soared down the lane for outstretched one-handed dunks, and hung in the air for swished jumpers that kept extending the Spurs’ lead, he at least made us think it was a possibility.
But if the Spurs already were 9-to-1 underdogs, as one Las Vegas sports book pegged them before the series began, how far did those odds fall as Leonard hobbled off the floor, leaning harder on trainer Will Sevening with every step?
How far did they fall as Leonard called this latest sprain “very painful” and said he was not sure when he might return?
If Gregg Popovich said the day before Game 1 that his best strategy for beating the Warriors was to pray, what is it now? Animal sacrifice?
When Leonard went down midway through the third quarter, the Spurs’ only attractive option was to hold on. They needed to cling to that 23-point lead for dear life, then rest Leonard for five days and hope he would be ready to go with the series tied 1-1 heading into Game 3 on Saturday.
Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. They crumbled in the first four minutes after Leonard’s exit, giving up 18 consecutive points as the Warriors’ onslaught they knew was coming, came.
Later, someone mentioned to Popovich that his team might have been rattled when Leonard left.
“You think so?” he said. “Did you notice that?”
Everybody did. And, yes, the Spurs probably should have handled it better.
But they lost their starting point guard for the season a week and a half ago, and they lost the best two-way player in the league Sunday, and they were facing the most talented NBA team of this era on its home floor, and all of this was bound to catch up with them.
Still, it was difficult not to empathize with Leonard, sitting with that towel draped over his shoulder, staring straight ahead, perhaps wondering what exactly it was that just slipped away.
And realizing he’ll never know for sure.