Nick Nurse has tricks | Kawhi sues Nike over logo he designed (also buys a house in Toronto) | Klay hurt, not sure how hurt, but hurt enough to maybe miss game 3 🤞🏼
Adjustments
The Raptors went to a box-and-one zone late, which I covered off in detail Sunday night and won’t repeat here. There’s a video breakdown within that link.
The Warriors had gone to a funky switch-and-trap on Leonard in the fourth quarter of Game 1 and moved away from that here, though they did still trap and wind up switching on occasion.
On occasion, they utilized a more standard switching approach, and Leonard was able to get what he needed when Cousins and Bogut dropped back a little too far.
Overall, Leonard’s passing against the traps regressed in this one after maybe the best four-game passing stretch of his career. There are times he misses the opportunity for a quick bounce pass right when the trap comes, others when he’s late and still others where he just decides he’ll beat the trap himself with a jumper (which is his prerogative as Kawhi Leonard, and the spacing is often bad enough he’s not looking at many driving lanes). Golden State is going to continue to test his ability and willingness to make these reads in rhythm without allowing their defence time to recover.
Elsewhere on offence, Siakam had another strong playmaking game despite the poor shooting night. His ability to read the timing of post-doubles is really solid, as is his anticipation of when the defence will collapse a bit too much his way in transition, freeing a clean kick-out.
We’ve talked about targeting Curry on defence but Danny Green post-ups is not the answer. You want to make Curry defend actions and, preferably, better offensive players. Green has a bit more post verve than expected, just not enough to dump the ball into him and stand around.
Defensively, the Raptors have to be more aware of Thompson once he gets rid of the ball. He got hot early on thanks to relocation threes, and exhausting as it is physically and in terms of communication, the Raptors can’t lose him once they think the primary threat is extinguished. (That’s obviously much easier said than done with the amount of split action with Curry that Thompson is involved in.)
Some of these relocation threes are just mean.
There’s a lot more we could unpack. The Raptors have a lot they can clean up at both ends, which is always equal parts frustrating and encouraging. Like the Warriors after Game 1, the Raptors probably feel like they can play a much better game and still nearly stole this one back.
The only other thing I’ll point out, because it’s bothering me, is that there’s just no need to defend Bogut like this on this lob. The trap was effective, Bogut isn’t a particularly dynamic weapon at the top of the floor and certainly isn’t a shooting threat and pressuring up on him like this is unnecessary and opens up the back end.
This is why Nick Nurse coaches the Raptors – TrueHoop
Nurse’s strategy worked, but don’t expect it again
The box-and-one defense looks like it sounds. Four defenders line up in a box format, with two guys out front on either side of the foul line and two underneath on either side of the basket. Each player guards his zone (the area around him) and the fifth guy marks the other team’s best offensive player, wherever he goes. That was Curry, in this case, who was draped in Fred VanVleet all over the court.
The Warriors were caught off guard because this desperate defense is far more common in youth games, where a team usually has just one great player. The defense CAN make it hard on the one great player, but the other four defenders have an awfully tough task. That isn’t often the case in AAU games for middle-school players, but in the NBA it should’ve been easy to counter—NBA players with a plan can carve it up. But that nearly minute-long Raptors possession had signaled that the Warriors had left all they had on the court. They were toast. Cooked.
Nurse picked a perfect time to unleash his plan, because tired players just don’t think well. By the time Thompson hobbled out of the game, Curry was exhausted too. And so the Warriors never figured out how to attack the junk defense.
This was likely a one-and-done strategy. Even if Thompson and Durant don’t play in Game 3. Kerr will move his guys around and likely destroy it if the Raptors try it again.
Nurse knows that. He clearly had hoped to use it once to steal a win. He’ll have to find something else now. The reality is, the Warriors needed only 43 minutes, 21 seconds to win this game, so what the Raptors did for the final 5:39 didn’t decide the game.
Raptors’ Lowry knows he’s too important to continue foul trouble trend – Sportsnet.ca
Sunday featured what appeared to be a particularly tight whistle with referees Foster, Tony Brothers and Ed Malloy calling a fair amount of ticky-tack stuff for both teams. As such, this compounded with Lowry fouling out in a Raptors loss in the Finals has seemed to bring this trend to the forefront.
It just hasn’t been much of a talking point because the Raptors have been successful despite the amount of time Lowry’s had to sit on the bench with foul trouble.
There have been 13 games so far in the playoffs that Lowry has had four or more fouls, and the Raptors are 9-4 in those contests. In games that have seen Lowry pick up five or more, they’re 4-2. Meanwhile in games when Lowry has picked up less than three fouls, the Raptors are 4-3.
There’s admittedly not a whole lot to glean from these innocuous records but it does speak to the aggressiveness with which Lowry plays.
“You’ve got to play physical basketball,” said Raptors coach Nick Nurse. “But you’ve got to be able to adjust and all those kinds of things and try to stay out of it, and you’ve got to avoid the silly ones, too.”
Lowry is deservedly praised for the playoffs-leading 16 charges he’s drawn so far, as well as his tough, physical play defensively hounding opponent guards. But there’s a lot of grey area involved with the interpretation of plays that see Lowry pick up a foul in real time, and Games 1 and 2 of the Finals have illustrated this.
With Dubs reeling, Raptors let Game 2 slip away – ESPN
The injuries had Golden State reeling, and struggling to score. Over the final few minutes of the fourth quarter, Nurse — with his high school coach and multiple teammates watching from the stands — went to a defense he may have used in those days, a box-and-one, on Curry, the lone remaining scoring threat at Golden State’s disposal.
Until Andre Iguodala hit a 3-pointer with seven seconds remaining, the Warriors didn’t score against it. Meanwhile, though, the Raptors shot just 2-for-12 in the same stretch, failing to do just enough to reclaim a game they had looked on their way to winning at times in the first half.
That all changed, though, when Golden State opened the second half with an 18-0 run, during which Toronto missed all eight shots it took, and committed five turnovers to boot.
“We made a ton of mistakes,” Kyle Lowry told ESPN. “That’s one thing. We made a lot of mistakes we can fix, and I think that’s the one thing we’ll take from this.
“We will watch the film and get better, and that’s all we can do right now.”
That introspection will have to start with Lowry himself. Toronto’s star point guard had a second straight bad game, scoring 13 points on 4-for-11 shooting and fouling out with 3:52 remaining on a bad reach-in on DeMarcus Cousins 92 feet from Golden State’s basket.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Raptors other than Leonard didn’t fare much better. Toronto shot 37.2 percent overall and 11-for-38 (28.9 percent) from 3-point range. Early foul trouble appeared to leave Toronto much more hesitant to play the kind of aggressive defense that has swarmed over each of the Raptors’ opponents in the playoffs — including Golden State in Game 1.
And the two players who were instrumental in Toronto’s victory in the series opener, Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol, were missing in action Sunday. Siakam shot 5-for-18 and scored 12 points after going 14-for-17 and scoring 32 in Game 1, while Gasol followed up a 20-point, seven-rebound showing by scoring six points and shooting 2-for-7 in 31 minutes.
Raptors need more from fearless Lowry in NBA Finals | The Star
“I’m not going to get in trouble,” said Lowry, declining to slam the officials. “But a couple of them I didn’t think I fouled. Then you’ve got to just keep moving on. At the end of the day, I just have to put myself in a better position not to foul.”
A better position, period. Toronto simply missed a lot of shots in Game 2. But Leonard’s still slow recognizing how to attack extra bodies, and to see the places he could whip a pass if he was built like LeBron James, so they need other creators. And as point guard Fred VanVleet said of the Warriors, “You’ve gotta score against this team.”
So the Raptors will need all of Kyle, and soon. In Game 2 he settled too often when switched onto slower players. He turned the ball over twice and missed his one shot during Toronto’s third-quarter meltdown in Game 2, as Green helped off him at times. He got the engine going a little early in the fourth, but finished with a playoffs-low one rebound, and a playoffs-low two assists.
The amazing thing is, the Raptors are right here despite Lowry not having a great all-around Lowry game yet. They have won six of the eight quarters in the series, made life difficult for the Warriors, and could have come back in Game 2 had they made just a couple of the nine shots they missed in the final 5:39.
The Warriors are limping, and the games in Oakland will still be hard, but the Raptors can do this. Steve Nash was beset by bad luck before L.A. and worse luck when he got there, and he never got this far. Kyle Lowry, meanwhile, is still going. And he has a chance to help carry this thing to the end.
Golden State Warriors only needed 6 minutes to change the NBA Finals – SBNation.com
Consider that the Raptors are +22 in the other 90 minutes in the series and -18 in that single six-minute stretch. Because of that stretch, they’ve lost home court advantage and go to Oakland tied 1-1, needing to win one on the road to feel alive in the series.
Consider that the Raptors are that six-minute stretch away from being up 2-0 in the NBA Finals on the two-time defending champs.
Consider that the Raptors are that six-minute stretch from being the biggest story of the year, maybe, in North American sports.
What a shame that Toronto, like so many teams before them, couldn’t find a way to slow the Warriors or get points on the board during one of those characteristic, well-plotted runs.
It’s a real testament to Steve Kerr and his coaching staff, along with the brains all over the roster, that these runs always happen in the third quarter. Kerr has never been afraid of making adjustments and taking risks. He has an excellent staff who always seem to know what fresh looks to give opponents. He has the smart and talented players to pull it off.
Consider what an asset it is to have defenders as smart as Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala. Kerr was able to trust Green to defend Lowry in the third quarter — and Green wore out Lowry — with Iguodala marking the bigger, faster Pascal Siakam. Klay Thompson is strong for his size, and he was fearless in defending the rock-solid Kawhi Leonard. Eventually, after the damage was done, Kawhi figured out how to attack a defense that conceded lanes to him. (He feasted especially once Alfonzo McKinnie had the job of guarding him.) But because Leonard’s one offensive weakness is passing off the pick and roll, and because Iguodala and Green are brilliant and merciless, the Raptors just couldn’t do anything in that 18-0 stretch, and neither Siakam or Lowry could get it going at all.
Green and Iguodala allow the Warriors to avoid getting burned by Stephen Curry’s size (especially as he felt under the weather) and DeMarcus Cousins’ recovery speed on defense. Marc Gasol has played well against Cousins over the course of their careers, but this is both a different Gasol and a different Cousins. Boogie hasn’t been interested in trying to score much in the Finals as he recovers from a second major leg injury. Whenever Cousins was involved in a pick-and-roll, he typically laid off a little to give shooters space; Toronto didn’t make him pay much for that. That has to change if Cousins continues to play big minutes, depending on Kevon Looney’s injury status.
All the Raptors can hope for now is that the six-minute stretch doesn’t get in their heads if they are able to play well and grab a lead in Game 3 or 4. It must be intimidating to face such a decorated team, one that you can dominate for 90 minutes of a series, only to lose your entire advantage in six. You know it’s coming, you see it coming, you’ve studied for the moment that it comes … and there’s nothing you can do about it. You have to let it run its course roughshod over you and hope you can recover.
Can Toronto recover? We’ll see.
Coaches, trainers and Kyle Lowry – what we think we know in a 1-1 Finals – ESPN
“F—ing giants”
Golden State’s preference is to play small. Call it the Hamptons 5 or the death lineup, but it means putting Draymond Green at center and switching on pick-and-rolls to create a flexible defense that spreads the floor with shooting on offense.That has become next to impossible with their injury list, which now includes backup center Kevon Looney, who missed the second half with a shoulder injury. In response, Kerr has gone old-school, using traditional bigs Cousins and Andrew Bogut as centers while keeping Green at power forward.
Doing so has hurt the Warriors’ ability to trap Leonard because the Raptors have put the big men in pick-and-rolls with Leonard as the ball handler. The big men have no choice but to back up and allow more room. Leonard was more effective in Game 2 because of it, as he scored 34 points after posting 23 in Game 1.
But the side effect is this: It has given the Warriors great size around the rim, which has bothered the Raptors. Toronto has smaller guards, Lowry and VanVleet, who often struggle to score against size at the rim. It also can bother Siakam, who can be pushed around inside.
In Game 1, the Raptors went 20-of-28 in the paint, with Siakam especially taking advantage, shooting 10-of-11 inside. In Game 2, with Cousins and Bogut playing a combined 35 minutes, Toronto went 22-of-46 in the paint. Siakam shot 5-of-14 at the rim.
The Three Adjustments That Fueled the Warriors’ Game 2 NBA Finals Win – The Ringer
Putting Draymond in Position to Thrive on Help D
Nurse must find better ways for the Raptors to attack Cousins on defense moving forward, but it’s not like he didn’t try in Game 2. Toronto ran countless pick-and-rolls against Boogie, but the Warriors neutralized their effect by dropping the big man and happily allowing Gasol to shoot from deep. Gasol often hesitated, and even if the Raptors attacked the paint, Cousins had help as a result of Kerr’s other changes.
The Warriors opened the second half with Thompson defending Leonard, either Iguodala or Draymond guarding Kyle Lowry, and whoever wasn’t on Lowry sagging off Pascal Siakam. It worked wonderfully: Lowry can shoot but is an infrequent cutter, so two defenders as intelligent as Iggy and Green were able to successfully help off the ball to halt other players’ drives, keep track of Lowry, and afford themselves enough time to recover.
Here the Raptors have Danny Green screen for Lowry, and the Warriors switch as Green dives to the rim. Since Draymond isn’t worried about Siakam spotting up from above the break, an area from which Siakam hit just 27 percent of his 3s during the regular season, he can crash into the paint to pressure the Raptors wing. It results in a turnover. The next possession, Golden State had similar success.
This time Draymond is on Lowry and rotates to stop Gasol’s roll to the rim, while Iguodala and Curry shift to prevent a lob to Siakam. Lowry and Danny Green are open on the weak side, but Kawhi has a tough angle to pass to them and instead settles for a contested 2-pointer. This is standard defensive coverage against Toronto’s side pick-and-roll, and in differing circumstances it could have led to Kawhi finding an open driving lane against Cousins. But Kerr’s matchup choices put two of the Warriors’ best defenders in positions to help, influencing Kawhi to take the jumper.
The Finals are still waiting for a legendary Kawhi moment – The Athletic
“Learning from great teammates that I had then, from Tim, Tony and Manu. Seeing how they approached the game — every game, win, lose, missing a shot, game-winning shot, making a bad mistake. I guess just growing up, being in those moments before,” Leonard said, explaining his calm through storms. “If you’re playing a championship game in high school, you kind of get the same feeling. I just try to take my experiences and just keep moving forward and just have fun. Just basketball at this point. Win, lose or draw, I’m still going to be living, still got a family. This is all for fun.”
Leonard has been dealing with tendinitis in his left knee in every game since he made the “going to Toronto” joke, the result of a season spent overcompensating for a right quadriceps injury that limited him to nine games last season. The slightest complaint or excuse has yet to escape his lips. The dynamic performances continue to persist. His low-key personality and past experience have prepared him for this opportunity; the challenge now is bringing it home against a team playing with both the urgency and liberation that this could be the end of this run.
LeBron James, whose championship DNA was already formulated during two title runs as the primary force of nature in Miami, was the Warriors’ foe the previous four Finals appearances. Golden State beat James the first time when his best alternate scoring options were out with injury, lost to James after dealing with its own misfortune and then signed Kevin Durant for two Finals butt-whippings that made James leave Cleveland for the Los Angeles Lakers. A three-peat could result in Leonard leaving Toronto for the LA Clippers — though that could be the case regardless of which team winds up hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy sometime in the next two weeks.
Durant’s possible return from a calf strain looms over the whole series and injuries to Klay Thompson (hamstring) and Kevon Looney (collar bone) continue to whittle away at the Warriors depth. The opportunity exists for Leonard to join Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players in NBA history to win Finals MVP in both conferences but he has to seize it before a longtime nemesis, an all-time team, takes it away before he can get there. Again.
“It’s big respect for them,” Leonard said of the Warriors. “They have been here for the last four years, won the last two, and I mean you got to just take the challenge. Great basketball team, you got to go out there and accept the challenge and want to fight and win.”
Golden State Warriors: Quinn Cook must be a ‘Splash Bro’ in Game 3 – Blue Man Hoop
Cook played a key 21 minutes off the bench in Game 3, scoring nine points and going 3-5 from beyond the arc. But with Klay Thompson’s status uncertain it’s clear that Cook will need to emulate that same mindset once again Wednesday night at Oracle.
Were Kevin Durant to be officially in the fold, the extra shooting and scoring duties would rest comfortably on his shoulders. But despite Durant expected to return midway through the Finals, a Game 3 appearance is still unclear. Regardless whether he suits up or not, it’ll be up to his PG County peer to come up big once again.
Quin Cook has proven to step up in the moments when called upon. He did it last year when Golden State was without Stephen Curry late into the season and early into the playoffs. He’s done it again this postseason with injuries hounding the defending champs. Make no mistake he’ll get called upon again at Oracle.
But Cook knows the moment isn’t too big for him. The difference from a year ago? Now he’s got experience in his back pocket, proven to show up on the biggest stage.
The absence of Thompson in Game 3 would be huge for the Warriors. If not for his presence in the first half of Game 2, Golden State likely would have fallen well behind Toronto in that contest — and they wouldn’t have been able to use both his offensive gravity and his defensive skill to tilt the game in their favour over the long haul. In retrospect, it remains astounding the Warriors won Game 2, but I’d rather not dwell on that.
Just to refresh your memory, Thompson went down after inexplicably doing the splits following a three-point attempt in the fourth quarter.
Yes, Danny Green was right there to bump into Thompson, but I’m still not sure what the impulse was to go into the splits on the way down. (I’ll leave that for you to decipher.) Klay legged it out for a few plays after this, but eventually limped off the floor and did not return.
And now, the biggest story: the Kevin Durant non-story.
We still have no word on the status of Kevin Durant for Game 3. If he can’t go either, the Warriors’ offense truly will become something of a one-man show. Can Steph Curry, a few savvy ball-movers, and some set-shooters, topple the Raptors in Game 3? Honestly, they might could. If Game 2 taught the Raptors anything, it’s that this Warriors team has exactly zero quit in them. Toronto had better prepare their best effort.
WOL-STATS: The Woz crnches the numbers on Game 2 of the NBA Finals | Toronto Sun
16.7%
What Kawhi Leonard has shot in the two games when guarded by either Green (1-for-7) or Kevon Looney (1-for-5). He’s 11-for-22 (50%) against everyone else. Granted, Leonard has very rarely faced only a single defender, but NBA.com lists primary defenders and Leonard has struggled the most against those two. The good news for Toronto is the oft-injured Looney hurt his shoulder and is questionable for Game 3 and potentially beyond.
Five reasons the Raptors are in good shape with the series tied 1-1 | Toronto Sun
3. WARRIORS ARE TRULY BANGED UP
Klay Thompson was downplaying the severity of a strained hamstring following Game 2 and bravely declaring he would not sit out Game 3. A hamstring strain, though, is a tricky thing. Try to play through it and you risk making it worse. Thompson does have two full days between games to recover but the ultimate decision may not come down to him. The team will assess that injury and weigh the risks of coming back and playing on it. A similar risk/reward discussion will be had over Kevin Durant and whether the Warriors roll the dice and bring him out for Game 3 or even Game 4. Then there’s the nagging knee injury that Andre Iguodala is playing through and the shoulder issue that took Kevon Looney out of Sunday’s game. If nothing more, these bumps and bruises at least even the score on the injury front with Toronto, which is dealing with Kyle Lowry’s thumb injury that he is playing through despite admitting it will eventually require surgery, Kawhi Leonard’s thigh and knee appear to be slowing down the Raptors’ leading scorer and the continued absence of OG Anunoby, who has not played since April 12 after a burst appendix.
Five thoughts on Cousins, VanVleet and more – TSN.ca
4. DANNY GREEN AND SERGE IBAKA (Raptors): When I reflect on what the Raptors look like when they’re really playing well, it includes both of these guys doing a great job within their skill sets – Green aggressively hunting down and taking threes while defending his tail off and Ibaka thriving in the pick- and-pop game while rebounding and blocking shots like a terror. With the series knotted, they need to deliver. We’ve all seen that they have it in them. It’s when Toronto is super tough to beat.
Klay Thompson (25 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 32:08): 4 stars
Despite missing the final 7:59 due to a hamstring injury, Thompson may have been the best Warrior on the floor in Game 2. He was huge offensively in the first half, dropping 18 points, including the team’s first nine, on 7 of 10 from the field with every shot coming from 14 feet or farther. As has been the case in so many road wins in the playoffs over the years, Thompson kept the team afloat offensively in the early going while his teammates found themselves later on, most notably in the huge run to start the second half.
Thompson helped key that run on the defensive end more than as a scorer by switching up and taking the lead role slowing down Leonard after halftime. While the forward scored 18 in the second half, he did most of his damage at the free-throw line and most of those were not at Thompson’s expense, including a series after he left the game. Importantly, Klay was able to keep Kawhi out of his most dangerous parts of the floor without fouling as he only committed one infraction in the entire second half. Putting Thompson on Leonard opened up Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala to be more destructive as help defenders, which helped stymie the Raptors’ attack.
In the second half, Thompson’s shot profile changed as he was able to create looks by cutting as Cousins found him for two lefty layups, one of which was over and around Leonard’s outstretched arm. After not taking a shot inside 14 feet in the first half, 4 of his 7 second-half points came at the basket and he also contributed four assists in 12:39 as the ball was pinging around in the half court and transition.
It will likely take some time for us to find out Thompson’s status after a rough fall early in the fourth. Danny Green bumped him on a jump shot and whether to accentuate contact or forced by Green hitting him, Thompson’s legs splayed out and that awkward landing created at least a hamstring issue and possibly more. He will undergo an MRI and his status will be a key determining factor for where the series goes from here.
Kawhi Leonard Sues Nike, Says They Stole Control Of His Original Logo Design – Deadspin
The lawsuit says prior to Nike grabbing control of the logo, they’d understood and respected Kawhi’s ownership of the logo well enough to even decline to act when third parties used the logo “without authorization.” But Nike’s quiet registering of the logo in 2017 eventually came to Kawhi’s attention late in 2018, after Kawhi left Nike to sign with New Balance in November. Apparently Nike executive John Matterazzo sent Kawhi’s people a cease and desist letter the following month, asserting Nike’s ownership of the logo and demanding that it not be used on non-Nike merchandise.
You will remember, this is the logo that the Los Angeles Clippers reportedly looked into buying away from Nike as part of their anticipated courtship of Leonard this summer. The organization was apparently interested in passing along Nike’s ownership share of the logo to Kawhi as a condition of Kawhi jumping to the Clippers in free agency. Marc Stein reported then that Nike, meanwhile, “is intent on rebuffing all approaches and retaining its rights to that logo for as long as it can.”
Kawhi badly wants and feels justifiably entitled to something he says he created out of his own imagination and with which he personally identifies; Nike is loath to grant a competitor the known and market-proven logo of one of most rapidly ascending athletes in American professional sports. The lawsuit accuses Nike of defrauding the Copyright Office and asserts that Nike has no rights to the logo. You can read the whole thing below.
Kawhi files lawsuit against Nike over ‘Klaw’ logo – ESPN
The lawsuit goes on to explain, in detail, how Leonard came up with the idea for the logo, which was developed at the start of his rookie season during his lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign with the San Antonio Spurs.
“Leonard is known for his extremely large hands,” the lawsuit reads. “Throughout his career, spectators have noticed Leonard’s large hands and they are often described as contributing to his success as a player.
“Since at least his college years, Leonard contemplated and conceived of ideas for a personal logo which would be unique to him and reflect something meaningful relating to his own image. In late December 2011 or January 2012, Leonard refined a logo he had been creating for several years that encompassed his large and powerful hands, his initials and his jersey number.
“Leonard shared his original work of authorship with family and friends, solicited the advice and expertise of a creative designer, received comments and suggestions, and made modifications to his design.”
Later in the lawsuit, it states Leonard and Nike have gone back-and-forth multiple times over the past several months regarding the use of the logo, with the last correspondence being in March, when Nike told him, “it owns all intellectual property rights in the Leonard Logo and demanding that Leonard immediately cease and desist from what Nike claimed was the unauthorized use of the Leonard Logo.”
Finally, the lawsuit says the goal of the plaintiff is for Leonard to be declared the sole author of the logo; that Leonard’s use of his logo doesn’t interfere with Nike’s rights, including “without limitation any rights Nike may claim to possess with respect to the Leonard Logo”; and that the defendant committed fraud on the Copyright Office in registering the Leonard Logo, along with “any such other and further relief as this Court deems just and proper.”
Leonard and the Raptors will face the Warriors for Game 3 of the Finals at Oakland’s Oracle Arena on Wednesday night. The series is tied at a game apiece.
Kawhi Leonard’s Interview Laugh Is Almost As Hilarious As The Comment He Just Made – Narcity
Kawhi Leonard is one of the best ballers on the court right now. Since his start with the Raptors, Kawhi has elevated the team to new heights and has become a key player in Toronto’s road to the NBA Finals. But his skill as an athlete is only one of the reasons that fans adore him. Aside from his occasional “fun guy” moments and that famous Kawhi Leonard interview laugh, the player has proven time and time again that he knows how to handle himself in interviews.
In front of the media, Kawhi tends to come off a bit stiff, even awkward at times. But, he does have a good sense of humour and always seems to have the perfect answer to every question he’s asked. Leonard’s cool and calm demeanour has served him well and only makes fans want to get to know him even more.
Leonard is touchingly humble and, unlike other NBA players, has never seemed to care much for the glamour and glory of being one of the best basketball players in the league. Which makes his response to this question about LeBron James and Stephen Curry’s fame compared to his, so heartwarming:
10. The Raptors are in this series — with a real chance to take Game 3 on the road — despite their two top players fighting injuries. Kawhi Leonard has been battling a sore left knee since early in the conference finals. Kyle Lowry, meanwhile, has a ligament tear on his left thumb.
11. Sources told The Athletic’s Sam Amick and me that Leonard’s knee issue stems from overcompensating for his injured right quad suffered last season, that cost him all but nine games and basically paved the way for his exit out of San Antonio to the Raptors. His right quad, actually, is fine, and the left knee is the reason you’ve seen him laboring at times.
12. Leonard was awesome in Game 2, finishing with 34 points and 14 boards on 8-of-20 shooting and 16-of-16 from the line. He was just OK in Game 1. On Saturday, Raptors coach Nick Nurse said two interesting things as it relates to his star. One, he said the Warriors devised a defense for Leonard he’d never seen before (a late switch to blitz). Two, Nurse said “I don’t think the leg trouble is much of an issue.” It’s hard to say what it would mean to the Raptors if Leonard was moving at top speed, but Nurse was right about one thing. He said Leonard would improve from what we saw Thursday, and he was right.
David Thorpe on Raptors’ Game 2 loss, Kawhi’s future and more – TSN.ca
Truehoop analyst David Thorpe joins First Up with Michael and Carlo to discuss the Raptors’ Game 2 loss to the Warriors, Kawhi Leonard’s future in Toronto and more.
Breaking: Kawhi Leonard has filed a federal lawsuit against Nike. Leonard claims he designed the logo that appeared on his Nike apparel and Nike copyrighted the logo without his consent. pic.twitter.com/LRB0cRTOd0
— Matthew Kish (@matthewkish) June 3, 2019
‘The board man gets paid’: An oral history of Kawhi Leonard’s college days – The Athletic
Dave Velasquez, assistant coach: My favorite story about Kawhi is when he got to San Diego State his freshman year. He had a math class at 8 a.m. and a writing class at 10 a.m. It was Monday through Thursday, and it was really tough. Our job was to make sure the freshmen were up for that 8 a.m. class. So we were always knocking on their dorm room at 7:30. When we had to find Kawhi for his 8 a.m. class, he was rebounding by himself.
Gay: By far the hardest worker I’ve ever come across, I’ve ever known.
Alex Jamerson, manager: I’ve never seen anyone, ever, work harder in my whole life.
Jamerson: I would show up early to our arena to get things set up for practice. I’m thinking, “Oh, I’m going to be the first guy in the arena just to get things set up,” and I walk out to bring the balls out and he’s already got one or two with him shooting in the dark in the arena. All by himself.
John Van Houten, manager: We used to have to break into the volleyball gym.
Shelton: This was before they had all these swipe cards. We had just one key that we would share to get into that gym. When you didn’t have the key available, you could put the finger under the door at Peterson Gym, and if you knew how to wiggle it right, you could push the latch up and unlock the door.
Van Houten: At first, you could get in and you had access to the lights, you had access to the hoops and everything was good. And then they started cracking down, so we started breaking in, but the lightbox would be locked.
Shelton: So Kawhi had a lamp, and on different occasions, Kawhi would be in there late and the lightbox would be locked, so he’d bring a lamp in there. He’d put his finger under the door and unlatch it and he’d go in there and shoot with just his lamp.
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