Kawhi Leonard’s Superstar Abilities Are Reappearing For LA Clippers

Facing numerous questions over the last few weeks, Kawhi Leonard and the LA Clippers have already felt some early-season pressure.

Will both of their superstars ever be available for an extended stretch? Is the team able to build enough on-court cohesion over the next few months?

Above all else: Will Leonard, still progressing from one of the toughest injuries to come back from, resemble the same monster as before?

Availability has undoubtedly been an issue for Leonard to begin this season, having only played in nine of the Clippers’ first 29 games. He dealt with knee stiffness after two games, followed by a sprained when he landed on a teammate.

Finally back in action and seeing his minutes increase, Leonard is slowly but surely rounding into form. The Clippers are 7-2 in the games he’s played, including a dominant victory over the Boston Celtics, who own the NBA’s best record and point differential.

Not only was Monday night versus Boston the most productive Leonard has been since tearing his ACL nearly 550 days ago, it was also the best he’s looked physically. The burst is still slowly making its way back, but his lateral movements and defensive energy look identical to the 2021 Kawhi that put the Western Conference on notice. Perhaps the most encouraging part of his return to the floor is the renewed focus on defense, prioritizing that end to give his team a little more room for error offensively.

He was everywhere defensively against two premier wings, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, moving with conviction and not letting Boston dictate the flow. In usual Kawhi fashion, he crashed the defensive glass (currently holding his best defensive rebounding rate since 2014-15) to finish possessions for his team and spark transition opportunities.

Leonard’s offensive usage is only 23.6% since returning this year, a full five percentage points lower than his 2021 season and nearly 10 percentage points lower than his first Clippers campaign. In some ways, his approach to this recovery is a coaching staff’s dream. It’s a selfless attitude through a long-term lens, easing his way back into the flow of Ty Lue’s system without hijacking possessions and trying to prove a point.

Multiple times this season, Leonard has pointed out the misconception of ACL injuries, detailing how it’s a two-year recovery to peak form and should not be rushed. Behind an extremely cautious medical staff, which Leonard does appreciate despite wanting to play more minutes, the Clippers aren’t showing all of their cards just yet.

Due to minutes restrictions, Lue hasn’t been able to effectively stagger Leonard and George to ensure one is always leading the offense. They finally tested it out Monday, leaving at least one of the stars on the floor at all times. It led to the team outscoring Boston in every quarter, achieving their 2022-23 mantra and securing their most significant win of the season.

Leonard was particularly impressive against Boston’s defense, actively seeking his own scoring opportunities as they played him straight up and resisted throwing extra bodies his way. It was a little different than what we’ve seen thus far, as defenses were choosing to make him a passer and taking away some of his go-to actions in the earlier games.

Most teams, fearful of Leonard’s power and size advantages with the ball in his hands, have opted to send help and crowd his space. It didn’t matter if he was in the early stages of returning — an extra body would be there digging down on his post-ups, he’d get a fair share of traps while running pick-and-roll, and defenders would often help off the strong-side corner to make him uncomfortable.

However, this version of Leonard is even more methodical and patient than before. It’s hard to imagine such a calmness, but that’s how it feels any time Leonard is dissecting the coverage. He’s now unbothered, making the right pass out of double teams and fully embracing the gravity he causes when storming downhill and threatening the paint.

On Monday, we finally got to see an instance of Kawhi doing majority of his work against switches. Considering isolation play is still an important component of playoff basketball, it was necessary to see how he looked in those spots — even if coaches typically like to stay away from a heavy dose of it.

The Clippers’ matchup with Boston could be viewed as a Finals preview, despite the obvious caveat that defensive anchors Robert Williams and Al Horford were not active. Still, it was one of the rare instances we got to see the All-Star wing duos facing off, with Leonard and George outplaying Tatum and Brown from start to finish.

It’s hard to come away from that performance without feeling optimistic about Leonard’s return to All-NBA status, whether it’s weeks or months down the line. He scored a season-high 25 points on 85.4% true shooting, also grabbing nine boards and dishing six assists in his 29 minutes.

Cashing in multiple long-range fadeaways, it looked like vintage Kawhi – a post-up force that can serve as an offensive hub and matchup problem for most defenders:

Across his nine games, he’s made 17 of his 35 mid-range jumpers (48.6%, an efficient mark considering the speed and lift are still coming back to him).

The hallmark of Kawhi’s game will always be hunting favorable matchups. Ideally, Lue would have him in a LeBron-type role, utilizing ball-screens to get a switch from a guard or center. Think back to how he dismantled the Mavericks’ defense down the stretch in the playoffs, meticulously searching for the weakest (or smallest) defenders. It allowed him to create advantages for his teammates by drawing help-side rotations and doubles, initiating the Clippers’ drive-and-kick game that unlocked a ton of catch-and-shoot threes.

If the defense is content with sticking a guard on him, or soft-switching at the last second, Leonard is taking matters into his own hands:

Pull-ups are forever going to be his bread and butter. However, a major positive from his last performance was how aggressively he tried getting to the rim. Leonard felt more comfortable attacking Brown than he did Tatum, so the Clippers went to the Kawhi-PG ball-screen a few times to start possessions:

Even for a competent wing defender, what makes Leonard so difficult to guard is his strength. If he gets you on his hip, as Brown is here, one slight nudge and he’s already creating the gap he needs to finish in the restricted area.

This move in semi-transition resembled prime Leonard, using a tight handle and extended reach to get by the pesky Derrick White:

When Leonard gets into the paint, he’s 21-of-33 (63.6%), right in line with his shooting from the 2021 season (61.5% in the paint on 462 shots).

Offensively, the rustiest part of his game has been the 3-point touch. As he slowly builds the trust in his knee to blow by defenders, quite a few possessions have ended with him settling for contested pull-up threes. So, it made sense that he was shooting 17.2% from beyond the arc entering the Boston game.

With more pep in his step and defenders sagging off to prevent him from driving (particularly in semi-transition), we should begin to see him take advantage of that space and convert more of those off-the-dribble threes.

Before Monday’s game, Leonard was only averaging 17 points per 75 possessions through his first eight appearances. From an aggression standpoint, he rarely forced his own scoring opportunities, going multiple possessions without looking to post up and allowing other guys to break down the defense while operating as a spacer. When the situation called for him to attack, we saw glimpses of how punishing he can be while driving and inviting contact.

The win over Boston was just another data point that he’s on his way back to the level everyone expected in the offseason. As the game reps continue to stack up and the minutes restriction eventually becomes a thing of the past, the Clippers will demonstrate they belong in the top tier of West contenders.

So far, they have a sample of 230 minutes with their franchise cornerstone that suggests everything is on the right path.

With Leonard on the court, the Clippers are scoring 114.1 points per 100 possessions and allowing just 101.1 — for perspective, the league average is roughly 112.1 per 100 possessions. LA has a +13.0 net rating with Leonard, which is the highest in the NBA among all players receiving at least 25 minutes per game with a 20% usage or higher. That’s among a pool of 98 players.

The Clippers’ defensive rating of 101.1 in those minutes is a ridiculous 11 points better than league-average. Although these are not individual stats and defense requires a full team commitment, it’s worth pointing out no player in the above sample has a lower defensive rating than Leonard. That includes Jaren Jackson Jr., who has a solid shot at Defensive Player of the Year and looks to be the most impressive paint defender in the league right now.

By effective field goal percentage, LA’s opponents are shooting 6.6 percentage points worse with Leonard on the court versus when he sits, per Cleaning the Glass. It puts him in the 98th percentile among all forwards in eFG% differential.

The Clippers have maintained their long-term outlook despite all of the noise and criticism surrounding the team. With the current state of the Western Conference standings — most playoff seeds bunched together with the Clippers only 3.5 games out of first — this would be the perfect time for them to string together a healthy month.

For Leonard, the goal remains the same. He practices patience over immediate results, only worried about May and June and not showing concern in December. A key part of the process for him and the Clippers’ title aspirations, however, will be developing habits on both ends of the floor.

Monday was a huge step in the right direction, and it gave the team a sense of relief to know Leonard still has the ability to take control when called upon.