NBANBAWith every strain and surgery, it seemed less likely that we’d ever see apex Kawhi again. And then, in Game 2 against the Nuggets, he reappeared.
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By Rob MahoneyApril 22, 2:33 pm UTC • 5 min
Kawhi Leonard has, in some respects, already been lost to time. If you weren’t watching his career play out in the here and now, you would never believe how unstoppable he is. And even if you were watching, Kawhi’s dominance has been so scattered by injury as to challenge our own collective memory. His body of work is incomprehensible. Possession for possession, Leonard has a case as one of the greatest basketball players to ever live. He’s also been outscored across his career by Rudy Gay, Monta Ellis, and Antawn Jamison. None of it really adds up—until you see Leonard, at his most ruthlessly efficient, create and make whatever shot he wants at the highest levels of competition.
It’s been five years since Leonard finished a season for the Los Angeles Clippers. It’s been four since he was last a perfect playoff buzzsaw—and with every strain and surgery, it seemed less likely that we would ever see that version again. Until, on Monday night, he just appeared. Leonard followed up a pedestrian Game 1 against the Nuggets with one of his most undeniable performances yet: 39 points on 15-of-19 shooting from the field, five assists and just a single turnover, apex predator defense, and every winning play necessary for the Clippers to secure a 105-102 win.
Down the stretch, the Denver Nuggets scrambled to orient their offense and maintain their spacing. The Clippers simply gave the ball to Leonard. His game has always been exceedingly straightforward, but never more so than on nights when it’s clear that nothing can stop him. Aaron Gordon took on the assignment and played sound, dedicated, and ultimately irrelevant defense. Denver shaded other defenders toward Kawhi whenever he had the ball, cutting off driving lanes and limiting where he could go. It didn’t matter. Leonard operates with such ridiculous precision that he can thrive within whatever box you put him in. Shrink his space, and he’ll simply consolidate his moves to fit.
“I’m just focused on the next play and trying to win,” Leonard said after the game. “Get to my shot and shoot and live with the outcome—whatever game it is, however good or bad it’s going.” It’s all so simple when you can cut straight through the wild swings of playoff basketball. Both teams in this series have players who are living in the whiplash between riding high and crashing out. Leonard is distinctly, characteristically unbothered.
Even in the pantheon of all-time shotmakers, there’s never been a player like Kawhi. His economy of movement should be studied—not in a film session, but for science. He creates a preposterous amount of space with a single step. His balance is impeccable, particularly for a player with such an extensive history of lower-body injuries. His game is marvelously engineered from the ground up, built to withstand all scrutiny. You can’t rush Kawhi or crowd him or bait him into a mistake. There is no indulgence in his approach; it’s simply a matter of fact. When he’s in a zone, Leonard moves with the certainty of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. What’s the playoff adjustment for inevitability?
“Maybe we should make him feel more crowded, but I think he’s so used to it,” Nikola Jokic said after the game. “He did make tough shots, but are they really tough shots for him?”
Denver could trap Leonard more aggressively, as it did at times in Game 1—but doing so risks serving easy looks to James Harden and the supporting Clippers. Yet trying to contain Leonard one-on-one and living with the consequences leaves the Nuggets vulnerable to just this kind of eruption. “If we come and get him and Norman [Powell] gets going, and you’re rotating to James now in a closeout—you’re playing a tough game there,” said Nuggets interim head coach David Adelman. “Because if you make a decision to go hit him, you are saying: Open shots are somewhere.” Kawhi won’t always shoot 15-of-19, but he’ll hit enough contested shots to challenge Denver’s resolve and create inroads in a toss-up series. After two games, the Nuggets and Clippers are separated by a single point. And within that razor-thin margin, Kawhi is turning up series-changing baskets out of nowhere. Just look at the way he was able to wring points out of a busted drive that defaulted into a post-up in traffic, culminating in a turnaround jumper challenged—and nearly blocked—by Gordon at the point of release:
Maybe that in itself is an endorsement of Denver’s strategy. If Leonard is going to hit impossible shots anyway, maybe the Nuggets are better off attempting to deny everyone else? Maybe it wasn’t the 39 from Leonard that beat Denver, but the 13 from Powell or the 16 from Ivica Zubac or even the single against-all-odds basket Kawhi set up for Ben Simmons. Maybe the logical play is to put Kawhi in the box knowing that he’ll break it. Even that is easier said than done. For an opponent, watching Leonard hit contested shot after contested shot can be dispiriting—the kind of gut punch that does more to a team than what’s reflected on the scoreboard. It’s also why opposing fans often find the experience of watching Leonard to be so visceral. See enough of these shots go down, and terror will spring from every dribble.
On one transition sequence in the fourth quarter, Leonard hit a backpedaling Gordon with a stepback so refined that the Nuggets forward could only watch as the shot went up. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the moves you’d see from Harden or Jamal Murray—just ruthless in its ease. It won’t be the last time that Gordon and the Nuggets have to tip their cap and go on to the next play, but it’s hard not to feel the accumulation of Kawhi’s shotmaking. Any defender can live with an opponent going one-for-one, but living with 15-of-19 is an entirely different challenge. And beyond that: Grappling with this Kawhi Leonard for seven games requires a radical acceptance of what’s to come.
The required health-related caveats apply, but this won’t be the last time in this series that Kawhi seems unstoppable, no matter what changes the Nuggets make. It’s what he does. It’s who he is, even after all these injuries and all these years. Taking that as an underlying truth of the series is the only way for Denver to survive it.
Rob covers the NBA and pop culture for The Ringer. He previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated.
