Let it be said up front, for the sake of clarity: Kawhi Leonard, the San Antonio Spurs’ best player in the present tense, played well on Thursday night against the Golden State Warriors.
An 8-of-12 shooting line, two 3-point makes, eight trips to the foul line, and only two turnovers represents a relatively efficient performance. On a night when an injured Boris Diaw couldn’t pose matchup problems for the Warriors, Leonard did what he reasonably could. On a night when LaMarcus Aldridge played yet another bad game in Oakland — he wasn’t much better than he was on Jan. 25 in Oracle Arena — and when Tim Duncan (who didn’t play on Jan. 25) struggled, the Spurs didn’t have a lot of great options. Leonard did what he could under less-than-ideal circumstances.
Leonard is not a problem. Leonard is not a deficiency. Leonard is not a player who has to look at himself in the mirror and question anything he’s doing, or how he’s doing it.
Yet — life being complicated — there’s no San Antonio Spur who bears a greater burden if his team is able to reach the Western Conference Finals and meet the Warriors in late May.
Kawhi is life so unfair? It’s not a question Mr. Leonard or anyone else can answer — not in a season when San Antonio could still win as many as 69 games and be a No. 2 playoff seed. The Spurs have never been better in their history… and yet they’re not the favorites to win the NBA championship.
All San Antonio can try to do is:
A) Get to the West Finals first.
B) Once there, figure out a roadmap which leads to four wins over the Warriors.
A is its own separate challenge. B — put sharply into focus by Thursday night’s loss in Oracle Arena — is hard to envision without a number of things happening. Of those items, though, one stands above the rest.
Sure, Diaw needs to be healthy and on the floor for extended minutes.
Sure, Patty Mills has to fill it up when he’s on the floor. He didn’t do that on Thursday.
Sure, Tony Parker — so noticeably diminished in the 2015 playoffs against the Los Angeles Clippers — has to make more of an impact than what he provided on Thursday.
Sure, Tim Duncan has to make his presence felt. He hasn’t yet done so in any of the first three games against the Warriors this season.
Yet, all four of those players are either old enough or peripheral enough that they can’t be expected to exist on a very elevated plane every night of a best-of-seven series against Golden State. One night, two of them might be great, while the other two recede into the background. At the very least, that’s a reasonable expectation from San Antonio’s vantage point. The days of Parker and Duncan always bringing their best fastball — without cessation — are over.
The player who has to be great every night against the Warriors — and who can reasonably expect himself to be great every night against the Warriors — is Kawhi Leonard. There should be no debate about this point.
LaMarcus Aldridge is an X-factor player, since he’s still relatively new to the Spurs and has not found his groove against Golden State. He’s the second-most important Spur in a potential West Finals series.
Kawhi, though, is the Spurs’ most important player. It’s within his ability to be great every night, and he HAS to be great every night. It’s hard to create a four-win roadmap in a best-of-seven series if Kawhi has any off nights… or even nights that are less than what they need to be.
Let’s briefly amplify that last point.
On Thursday, Kawhi hit two-thirds of both his field goals and his threes. (The 5-of-8 free throw line needs to become 7-of-8.) On its face, that’s fantastic efficiency. However — and this is merely a reflection of the demands Golden State’s excellence will place on the Spurs if they meet in the playoffs — Kawhi can’t limit himself to 12 field goal attempts or three 3-point attempts. Kawhi’s shot volume will have to be greater. How much greater is the question.
A key point of emphasis is that as long as Kawhi is attacking Golden State’s defense with the ball in his hands, the Warriors will have to react to what he does. Maybe Kawhi won’t have to shoot to create a great shot for his team. If he draws defenders and kicks out to a wide-open Danny Green for three, that’s a good shot. The point to stress, though, is that Kawhi will need to be the primary creative agent — more than Parker, more than Manu Ginobili, more than Mills or anyone else who handles the ball for the Spurs.
Will it be tough for Kawhi Leonard to alter his mentality and become more selfish? Yes.
Then again, beating Golden State in the playoffs will be tough.
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Kawhi Leonard needs to get through two rounds of playoffs before worrying about the Warriors. That said, if he does run into Golden State in a month and a half, he will need to have the courage needed to be more selfish. If that evolutionary development doesn’t occur, don’t waste time wondering which team will be the Western Conference (and most likely, NBA) champion in 2016.
