Toronto Raptors

The Toronto Raptors are searching for answers against the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals, and according to head coach Nick Nurse, self-pity is not among them.

Following Toronto's 125-103 Game 2 loss Friday to go down 2-0 in the series, Nurse was told 94 percent of teams with 2-0 leads in best-of-seven series have won.

"That can't be right," Nurse said, according to ESPN's Tim Bontemps. "That can't be right. Check the figures.

"I don't know. How do I find the solace [in that]? ... I don't really give a crap about that. I just want our team to come play their ass off [Sunday night] and get one game and it changes the series."

Bontemps noted teams with 2-0 leads are 51-5 (91.1 percent) in the conference finals and 287-20 (93.5 percent) overall in postseason series.

Raptors All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard had a similar approach to his coach when asked by a reporter, "Where do you go from here?"

"I'm going to Toronto for Game 3," Leonard nonchalantly replied (h/t Yahoo Sports Canada).

The real answer is much more complicated than that. During Nurse's conference call with media Saturday, the first-year coach divulged "more than one lineup change" could be in play, per Sportsnet's Arden Zwelling.

Zwelling proposed that Nurse start Serge Ibaka over Marc Gasol, who has scored just eight points through the first two games of the series on 15 percent shooting.

Context from Zwelling:

His Game [2] performance produced a minus-3.8 game score, tied for his second-lowest ever. The only time in his 868-game career (regular season and playoffs) that Gasol's posted a worse game score was Feb. 5, 2012. He earned a minus-7.0 that night, after going 3-for-14 from the field and committing seven turnovers. Friday's performance was Gasol's worst in seven years and nearly 600 games.

As bad as Game 2 was for the Raptors, their Game 1 loss may sting worse. Toronto wasted point guard Kyle Lowry's best performance of these playoffs. It led for most of the contest behind Lowry and his 30 points (10-of-15 from the field, 7-of-9 from three) before Brook Lopez led the Bucks' comeback in the fourth with 13 of his team-high 29 points.

Kyle Lowry fourth quarter: 5 for 7.
Every other Raptor in the fourth quarter: 0 for 15.

— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) May 16, 2019

Lowry has since, it seems, re-aggravated a thumb injury he suffered in Game 7 of the conference semifinals.

"It is what it is at this point," Lowry said following Game 2 (h/t Yahoo Sports Canada).

Regardless, on Sunday, Toronto will have to call back to what worked in Game 1 as it tries to crack Milwaukee's code. The Raptors have come from behind in this postseason run before, rebounding from a 1-0 deficit against the Orlando Magic and a 2-1 deficit against the Philadelphia 76ers. This time, however, they will have to do it against the NBA's only 60-win team.

Game 3 will tip off from Toronto's Scotiabank Arena at 7 p.m. ET.

Toronto Raptors center Marc Gasol accepted blame for failing to set the tone early in the team's 125-103 loss to Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Friday night.

"The beginning [of the game] set us in a really bad spot," Gasol told reporters after Toronto went down 0-2 in the series. "We couldn't get a grip of the game early on, and I take full responsibility for that."

He added, "I played really bad, and that set the tone."

Gasol made just one of his nine shots and didn't get to the free-throw line. He finished with two points, five rebounds, one assists and one block in 19 minutes.

Toronto fell behind by 14 points after the first quarter and could never recover despite a game-high 31 points from Kawhi Leonard.

"If we want to do anything or be a championship team, we gotta play through adversity," Leonard told reporters. "And it's a challenge now, to come home, Game 3, and try to get a win."

Gasol's struggles carried over from Game 1, when he connected on only two of his 11 attempts from the field across 40 minutes in a 108-100 loss. Meanwhile, Antetokounmpo recorded 30 points to pace the Bucks in Game 2 on the same day he was named an MVP finalist.

Milwaukee's bench also played a key role in the win. It outscored Toronto's reserves 54-39 in Friday's game, with Ersan Ilyasova contributing 17 points.

The Eastern Conference Finals resume Sunday night when the series shifts to Scotiabank Arena in Toronto as the Raptors attempt to avoid a likely insurmountable 3-0 hole.

Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry scored 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting (7-of-9 from three) on Wednesday, but his team lost to the Milwaukee Bucks 108-100 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. 

After the game, Lowry made it clear that his individual accomplishments significantly paled in comparison to the overall result:

"Individual stuff doesn't do anything for me."

Kyle Lowry (30 PTS & 7 3PM) on his performance in Game 1. #NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/nqTfSW4k6q

— NBA TV (@NBATV) May 16, 2019

The 13-year veteran was hot while the rest of his team went cold. Per Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press, the Raptors minus Lowry went 0-of-15 in the fourth quarter. For the game, Toronto shot 31.2 percent when excluding his performance.

However, the Raptors are a much better offensive team than what they showed Wednesday.

Per ESPN.com, Toronto finished 2018-19 ranked sixth in offensive efficiency, and that was with leading scorer Kawhi Leonard missing 22 regular-season games. The team also made 47.4 percent of its field goals, good for the NBA's fifth-best mark.

The Raptors can also take solace in the fact that they largely dominated the first three quarters despite the shooting slump. They led by 11 at the end of the first quarter and held an 83-76 edge heading into the fourth.

Toronto will likely shoot better from the field in Game 2, but its key to a road win may lie in its defense against a few key Bucks.

Namely, Toronto is going to have a hard time winning games if Brook Lopez goes off like he did on Wednesday to the tune of 29 points on 12-of-21 shooting. Malcolm Brogdon also proved a pain to defend with his 15 points off the bench.

Of course, the Raptors must face the challenge of defending future NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo every night, as well. But if Toronto shoots better and can clamp down defensively against Milwaukee's supporting cast, then Lowry can certainly enjoy his team's success postgame.

Milwaukee hosts Toronto for Game 2 on Friday at 8:30 p.m. ET.

The Toronto Raptors led the Milwaukee Bucks for the majority of Game 1 on Wednesday night, but it was Giannis Antetokounmpo and Co. who walked away victorious to start the Eastern Conference Finals.

Toronto guard Danny Green understands his team missed a golden opportunity.

"When you've got a team down like that you've got to be mature enough and professional enough to try to keep them there," Green said after the 108-100 loss, per TSN's Josh Lewenberg. "Obviously it's a great ball club over there, but this is one I thought we could have gotten...I felt like we let it slip away."

Milwaukee scored eight of the game's first 11 points, but Toronto would quickly gain control. The Raptors finished the opening period on a 31-15 run and led by as many as 13.

For much of the night, they appeared to be in position to steal home-court advantage. From the 8:44 mark in the first to the 9:56 mark in the fourth, a span of more than 34 consecutive minutes of game time, the Raptors held a lead.

Unfortunately for them, they were outscored 32-17 in the final period to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry (5-of-7 in the fourth) did what he could to lead Toronto to victory, but he didn't receive enough help from his teammates. The rest of the Raptors went 1-of-16 from the floor in the fourth, allowing the Bucks to finish on a 10-0 run over the final three minutes and 31 seconds.

The Bucks take Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals with a 108-100 win over the Raptors.

Milwaukee closed the game on a 10-0 run.

Kyle Lowry was the only Raptors player to make a FG in the 4th quarter.
(Lowry: 5-7 | Rest of team: 0-15) pic.twitter.com/602VU4Ckvh

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 16, 2019

Green went 0-of-2 in the fourth, leaving him just 1-of-5 on the night. He finished the game with six points and six rebounds, also committing three turnovers.

While the Raptors franchise has never made it past the conference finals, Green (and Kawhi Leonard) played in a pair of NBA Finals during his time with the San Antonio Spurs. He won a ring with the Spurs in 2014, and he is a Ray Allen shot away from being a two-time champion.

In other words, he knows a thing or two about postseason basketball.

Toronto fell to 3-15 in Game 1s all-time with the loss. The good news for the Raptors is they do have experience in bouncing back from a series-opening loss this postseason. After dropping Game 1 against the Orlando Magic in the first round, they ran off four straight victories to advance.

Of course, Milwaukee—the owner of the NBA's best record (60-22) during the regular season—figures to be a tougher challenge than Orlando. It's worth noting the Bucks are now 4-1 against the Raptors this season.

TORONTO — Kawhi Leonard walked back toward the Toronto Raptors' bench in Scotiabank Arena. The clock read 4.2 seconds. The score was tied. Leonard had been—and done—everything for the Raptors all night. He was the reason they were in this position, on the verge of advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals for just the second time in franchise history.

But he'd also nudged the door open for the Philadelphia 76ers, gifting them an opportunity to steal the series. He stood at the free-throw line just moments earlier, his team leading by two and the Sixers out of timeouts. Splash both, and the Raptors would have owned a three-point lead. Leonard hit the first, but the second shot, a line drive, clanked off the front of the rim. Sixers forward Tobias Harris grabbed it. He tossed the ball ahead to Jimmy Butler, who drove to the rim and floated a layup above the outstretched arms of Raptors forward Serge Ibaka and off the glass, tying the game.

Leonard's shoulders sank; his head dropped. Raptors head coach Nick Nurse called a timeout to draw up a play. It called for Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry to cut down from half court to the corner and Leonard to pop out to the perimeter off a Pascal Siakam screen. Sitting there on the bench, Leonard flipped on his hard drive.

First, he thought about a three-pointer he'd recently missed. "It ended up coming short. I knew I had to put it up even higher than that," he'd say later.

Then, he dug even further, back to Toronto's first-round playoff matchup against the Orlando Magic. Nurse had called a similar play at one point. 

"I ended up just catching and shooting the ball, it was probably about three seconds," Leonard would say later. Sitting on the bench listening to Nurse, he noticed the clock. "There were four seconds left and, remembering that moment, I knew I had some time to try and get some space rather than just catch and shoot the ball." 

There's a rule in basketball, one most players learn early: You can generally take one dribble for every second on the clock.

Leonard received the inbounds pass from Raptors center Marc Gasol and took four hard dribbles to the right, sprinting away from a Sixers trap and away from Ben Simmons, the Sixers player defending him, and toward the 7'0" Joel Embiid and deep into the right corner. He launched the ball over Embiid's arms and high into the air, his 39th shot of the game—this one a rainbow as opposed to his typical lightning bolt—and fell to the ground. The final horn buzzed. Leonard watched the ball bounce off the rim once, and then again, and then again, and then one final time before rolling through the net, lifting the Raptors to a 92-90 home Game 7 win, the first-ever Game 7 buzzer-beater in NBA history. 

Mobbed by his teammates, the fans in the building screaming in ecstasy, the typically apathetic Leonard let out a roar. 

"Like a goddamned movie," is how Raptors guard Danny Green described the play to Raptors assistant coach Jeremy Castleberry in a giddy Raptors locker room after the game.

"Sometimes it takes a bit of luck," Raptors center Marc Gasol said.

"It is good that the balancing scales were there tonight," Nurse said.

It's a cliche to describe sports as a game of inches, but cliches also exist for a reason. They're often true, and in this case, those inches—Leonard's shot just evading Embiid's fingertips, the ball rolling forward on the rim and toward the net instead of backward and toward the floor—could alter the future not of just the Raptors but the entire NBA.

Kawhi carries Toronto to the Eastern Conference Finals! pic.twitter.com/lEeXsbuuDW

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 13, 2019

Leonard's situation in Toronto is well-documented. Over the summer, having decided that his very good team had plateaued and desperate to build a great one, Raptors team president Masai Ujiri rolled the dice: He dealt fan favorite DeMar DeRozan to the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for the disgruntled Leonard. Leonard will be a free agent this summer. The Raptors had one season to persuade him. Making the Finals or winning a championship wouldn't come with any assurances, but there's also no better recruiting tool.

That's what was on the line in Game 7, a game where Leonard had to scratch and claw his way to 41 points. There were stretches of action when he seemed to be the only Raptor willing and interested in taking a shot. A loss under such circumstances could have undercut all of Toronto's efforts. Instead, the Raptors presented Leonard with a gift, aside from a moment he'll never forget, one he so rarely allows himself to enjoy: the opportunity to feel. 

"I'm a guy that acts like that I've been there before, so probably the last time you've seen me scream is when we won [during his time in San Antonio]," Leonard said. "Whenever it's a moment that I haven't really experienced, I probably try to give and show some emotion and let it just come out."

As Leonard was explaining to reporters how a human emotion managed to escape, Embiid was among his teammates, picking orange slices out of a black Tupperware container, searching for answers. The locker room was silent. Jimmy Butler studied a printout of a box score.

Embiid had played 45 minutes that night, a number that, just years ago, as he was recovering from multiple surgeries and being kept in bubble wrap, would have seemed unfathomable. This wasn't his best performance. He struggled on offense at times yet still finished the game with a solid 21 points on 6-of-18 shooting to go along with 11 rebounds, three blocks and four assists.

More telling: As had been the case all season, the Sixers hemorrhaged points whenever he left the floor. Embiid became the first player to play 45 or more minutes in a game, finish with a +10 rating or higher, and still watch his team lose.

He was their best player and most impactful player, just as he'd been all year. In 237 Eastern Conference semifinals minutes, the Sixers outscored the Raptors by 90 points. In the 99 minutes with him on the bench, the Sixers were outscored by 111. Embiid had given everything to this season, playing more games and minutes than ever.

Leonard's shot broke him.

He collapsed into Marc Gasol's arms after the ball dropped to the floor.

"You're going to be in this position again," Gasol told him. "Don't see this as failure. Losing is not failure."

T.J. McConnell, Embiid's longtime teammate and the only other player left from the Process years, led Embiid back to the locker room. Outside, Embiid was met by his girlfriend. She wiped away his tears. She put her hand on his cheek. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Have you ever lost a Game 7?" he asked general manager Elton Brand later on. Brand told him he had.

Embiid showered and dressed. He addressed reporters from the podium alongside Butler. 

"I don't know, I mean, I don't know. Game 7. Losing a game that way. Last shot, after a hard-fought game. I feel like we had a chance, a lot of things are going through," he offered when asked to describe what he was feeling. He then summarized his thoughts more succinctly: "It sucks. I don't know, I can't explain it, it just sucks."

"To see him have the emotion that he has, and he's one of many in that locker room, it is painful for all of us, but to your question with Joel, he'll look in the rearview mirror and remember this," Sixers head coach Brett Brown said. "He will come out better and smarter and stronger and more aware of what it takes to play longer than we've been able to play."

The question now is: Who will be with him for that ride? Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris are both free agents (Butler demurred when asked postgame about his contract). Ben Simmons is up for an extension. And of course, there's Brown. For months, Sixers managing partner Josh Harris has stoked rumors that failure to lead the team to the conference finals could cost Brown his job. It seems silly to allow a couple of bounces to decide a coach's future, but that Harris has refused to publicly back Brown is telling.

The two men met at half court moments before tipoff. The conversation ended with a fist bump. After the loss, Brown was asked if he has addressed these rumors with ownership.

"We've talked internally a lot, the club can respond to that," Brown said. He added: "I'm proud of what we've built. To take that next step is the mission."

For the Sixers, that next step will have to wait. The Raptors, meanwhile, get to move on. Maybe they beat the Milwaukee Bucks, maybe they fall. For now, thanks to a few inches, their season lives on, and with it comes hope, for now and beyond.

      

Yaron Weitzman covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow Yaron on Twitter, @YaronWeitzman, and sign up for his newsletter here.

Kawhi Leonard made history Sunday night with his dramatic buzzer-beater to propel the Toronto Raptors to the Eastern Conference Finals with a 92-90 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers, and he understood the magnitude of the moment.

"It was great," Leonard said, per Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com. "That's something I never experienced before—Game 7, winning shot. It's a blessing to get to that point and make that shot and feel that moment and it's something I can look back on in my career."

Nobody has experienced that before.

Arnovitz noted it is the first Game 7 buzzer-beater in NBA history and only the second shot to end a series in a do-or-die game. Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan drilled a buzzer-beater to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 5 in the first round of the 1989 playoffs.

Leonard’s buzzer-beater was his 39th field-goal attempt of the game and hung on the rim for what seemed like an eternity before it fell through. He finished with 41 points and averaged 34.7 a night in the series win over the Sixers.

The Raptors will surely need more of a balanced effort against a Milwaukee Bucks team that led the league in defensive rating during the regular season, per NBA.com, but they were winning or losing with their best player doing the heavy lifting on the offensive end in Sunday’s decisive battle.

They traded for Leonard for these exact moments, and he delivered in historic fashion.

The Toronto Raptors acquired Kawhi Leonard for moments just like this. 

The Raptors defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 92-90 in Game 7 of their second-round series Sunday, and Leonard dealt the decisive blow as time expired.

He hit a fadeaway jumper from the right corner over Sixers center Joel Embiid. The ball bounced four times off the rim before going down.

Leonard had a game-high 41 points to go along with eight rebounds, three assists and three steals.

The Raptors are now through to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second time in franchise history. They'll play the Milwaukee Bucks, with Game 1 set for Wednesday in Milwaukee.

Before he called a single play for Kawhi Leonard, before he ever coached or cajoled him or conversed with him, Nick Nurse had the same impression as anyone else of his new star player: Quiet. Reticent. Impenetrable.

That's the player the world saw and (rarely) heard all those years in San Antonio. That's the guy Nurse braced himself for last summer, after the Toronto Raptors acquired Leonard in a stunning blockbuster trade. So Nurse, the Raptors' newly installed rookie head coach, approached their first meeting with a dual strategy.

"Plan A was to have a conversation with him," Nurse recalled on a recent April afternoon. "And Plan B was, if there was no conversation, I was just going to tell him my life story, basically."

Nurse—a native of tiny Carroll, Iowa, whose coaching odyssey had taken him from Des Moines to South Dakota, to Belgium and various dots across the United Kingdom, to Oklahoma and Texas—had retold his story often while pursuing the Raptors' job. It was easy conversation filler.

"I'll just keep talking," Nurse told himself at the time.

But then something unexpected happened. Leonard talked. Engaged. Probed. Asked questions.

"He was smart, he was nice, he was respectful," Nurse recalled. "It was easy."

Easy. The word comes up repeatedly around this team when Leonard is the subject. Easy to coach, easy to play with, easy to befriend. And yes, easy to converse with—his comically reserved persona notwithstanding.

"He's easy guy," said teammate Serge Ibaka, who has become close to Leonard. "I like easy people."

Easy to win with, too, as the Raptors have happily learned over the past seven months, through a 58-win regular season and two rounds of the playoffs, including an incredibly taut semifinal series against the Philadelphia 76ers, now tied at 3-3. Game 7 is Sunday.

Leonard has been an absolute wrecking ball, destroying opponents with a deft blend of power and finesse, inspiring comparisons to Kobe Bryant (by Philadelphia coach Brett Brown) and Michael Jordan (by former player Kendrick Perkins).

A 37-point, 15-of-22 shooting clinic against Orlando in the first round. A 45-point, 11-rebound demolition of the Sixers in Game 1 of the semifinals. A 39-point, 14-rebound, five-assist masterpiece in Game 4. He's torched Ben Simmons and outshone Jimmy Butler and Joel Embiid.

Toronto is five victories from the first Finals appearance in franchise history. A championship feels plausible. And Leonard is by far the biggest reason. He is the heart of the Raptors offense and the backbone of the defense, attacking each possession with the steadiness and predictability of a metronome.

"He play at his own pace," Ibaka said. "His pace is not too fast, not too slow, in between. ... He's a superstar. And playing with a guy like him, it just makes it different. It makes it so easy in a game."

None of which should be surprising, given Leonard's credentials as a three-time All-Star and former Finals MVP.

And yet it all still feels like a joyful revelation of sorts.

Because of what came before. Because of how he got here. Because of the glaring risks that came with acquiring the fabulously talented 27-year-old from the Spurs in July.

Leonard missed 73 games last season—the result of a quadriceps injury and a testy standoff with Spurs officials over the handling of that injury. The conflict bred distrust and eventually a trade demand. Leonard, a Southern California native, hoped to land in Los Angeles. And with one season left on his contract, he had the leverage to scare off other suitors.

But Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri saw a rare opportunity to obtain a top-five player and went all in, shipping All-Star DeMar DeRozan, center Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 first-round draft pick to the Spurs for Leonard and Danny Green.

Two nagging questions loomed: Was Kawhi still Kawhi? And could the Raptors convince him to stay? That first question has been answered, emphatically. The answer to the second remains a mystery and likely will until July 1, when Leonard becomes a free agent.

Los Angeles still beckons in the form of the hyperaggressive Clippers, whose infatuation with Leonard is an open secret. The Lakers and James could come calling, too. No one pretends to know Leonard's intentions or what impact this postseason run will have on his decision.

Even Ibaka, perhaps Leonard's closest friend on the team, couldn't get a straight answer when he asked Leonard about free agency on his cooking show. ("We'll see after the season is up. I don't know," Leonard said.)

The past is irrelevant, the future hazy, but in this moment, all parties seem certain of this much: The marriage of Leonard and the Raptors, however long it lasts, has been seamless, brilliant—and worth the risk.

"I've always been a guy that played the game to win," Leonard said. "That's what I want to do every year. That's what I put my pride in."

Toronto, a solid-but-softish playoff team in recent years, feels legit at last. The Raptors provided Leonard a fresh start, a supportive environment, a plan to protect his body and the freedom to expand his game. And he in turn has given the franchise credibility—the sheen of a contender.

"He would never say this," said Steve Fisher, Leonard's coach at San Diego State, "but there's some satisfaction that after ... almost a lost season, that he's back in very, very, very rarefied air."

---

The second time Nurse sat down with Leonard, he came armed with questions instead of a personal biography. He again erred in his assumptions—and was again happy to be wrong.

The Raptors and Leonard had meshed quickly, easily, winning their first six games of the season and then running another six-game streak after a single loss in Milwaukee. Somewhere along the way, Nurse sought out Leonard to check in with him, to gauge his comfort level and his individual goals.

The mistake? Believing Leonard had individual goals.

"I kind of listed a few things that I thought he would care about personally," Nurse said. "Most of those, he discarded."

Nurse demurred on the specifics, but it's not hard to surmise what kind of personal goals an NBA coach might associate with an NBA superstar: His offensive role. Shots. Stats. Postseason honors. An MVP trophy.

Whatever was on that list, Leonard smacked it away as swiftly and forcefully as he swats away shots with those baseball-mitt hands of his.

"He said: 'I love to play. I want to be healthy, so I can play this game for a long time. And I want to win. That's all I really care about,'" Nurse recalled. "I found that to be pretty interesting, that he discarded all of the other kind of personal objectives and personal goals that I had kind of laid out."

Nurse, 51, chuckled sheepishly on that last part. He's been around the game long enough to know what drives elite players—and that every star is built a little differently. In Leonard's case, maybe a lot differently.

In a league often dominated by divas and drama fiends, Leonard presents as the ultimate low-maintenance superstar—no demands, no blowups, no hectoring of teammates, no controversial proclamations (or, really, any proclamations). He dominates the game without domineering his team.

"He's very emotionless, right?" Nurse said. "So there's no ups and downs, really. There's no crying, and there's no screaming at each other. There's just a guy that is trying very hard to do his job, that's a job that he really loves."

It takes time for Leonard to open up, but the Raptors have learned at least a little about what moves him: family (including a newborn son), music, food and basketball. He was both of fan and friend to Nipsey Hussle, the L.A. rapper who was gunned down in March.

Whatever drove the rift between Leonard and the Spurs, it's clearly more exception than rule. 

"He's a really fuckin' good teammate, man," said Kyle Lowry, the longtime hub of the Raptors' lineup. "He's a really good teammate."

It's mostly the little things—the way Leonard carries himself, the details he points out during a timeout, his direct manner, his seriousness about the game. But it's also in subtle gestures—like inviting a teammate to share a practice court with him during a morning shootaround, even though Leonard prefers to shoot by himself (and as the franchise star, gets the privilege of his own basket).

He's not overly demonstrative or loud, but he leads all the same.

"He got a lot of fight in him," Lowry said. "He's not as quiet as people think he is."

Indeed, these days Leonard is positively outspoken, at least by his standards—another sign of his steady evolution. As an unheralded rookie in 2011, Leonard fell in line behind Spurs legends Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. Even as he emerged as the MVP of the 2014 Finals, Leonard preferred to blend in.

With a change of scenery has come a shift in assertiveness.

"He's being more of a leader," says Green, who has played with Leonard since his Spurs debut. "I would say in the other organization, we had older guys. He didn't have to lead as much. It was more by example. But here, more vocal."

The same is true of Leonard's game. It's largely the same as it was in San Antonio—just bolder. He attempted a career-high 18.8 field goals per game in the regular season, a mark that ranked just 11th in the NBA, while still maintaining his efficiency. He's taken advantage of more isolation opportunities afforded by Nurse's offense and used them to great effect, averaging a career-best 26.6 points in the regular season.

"I'm impressed with sometimes how easy he can make getting 33 points look," Nurse said. "Stress-free 30 is a hell of a talent."

Leonard worked regularly this season with assistant coach Phil Handy, focusing on footwork, ball-handling and shooting off-the-dribble three-pointers, all in an effort to expand his game and take advantage of the greater latitude provided by Nurse.

"We have a lot of freedom here to be able to do things you want to do on the floor," Leonard said. "The biggest thing that I feel like I experienced this year is just learning about my game a little bit more with the more freedom that they have."

So yes, after all the weirdness and tension of last season, after all the games missed and concerns for his health, Kawhi is indeed still Kawhi. Maybe better.

---

While everyone was fretting and speculating last summer—about Leonard's health, his game, his mood, his mental makeup, his culpability in the Spurs rift, his willingness to play in Toronto, his winter-coat supply—Leonard was quietly, methodically reconstructing his game.

The days began as early as 6:30 a.m. at the Jeff Jacobs JAM Center, the practice court at San Diego State, where Leonard still trains every offseason. Fisher, the former Aztecs head coach, recalls the routine vividly.

"He'd come in, and he would do some dribbling and ball-handling," Fisher said. "But then he would start with form shooting, right under the basket, gradually work out. Then he would work on back-to-the-basket moves, precise, exactly what he wanted to do, with the up-and-under, with the turnaround. He developed a low-post game that he knew he could put to use. And then he would do the things that he does—off-the-dribble pull-up, coming off of a downscreen, a curl, a catch-and-shoot, drive. All the things that he would need to work on."

What Fisher sees now, in these playoffs, is a fully actualized Leonard—as good or better than the player who made a run at NBA MVP two years ago. That was precisely the goal when Leonard returned to campus last summer to work with Randy Shelton, his personal trainer and San Diego State's strength and conditioning coach.

"His mindset was not just to get back to the level of play of where he was but to exceed it," Shelton said. "I told everyone, 'Kawhi is going to be a better basketball player once he gets back on the court.'"

And now? Now Leonard is drawing nightly comparisons to NBA legends and terrorizing one of the most star-studded lineups in these playoffs. He's averaging an astounding 33.7 points, 10.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists against the Sixers while making nearly 57 percent of his shots (36.1 percent from three).

All of it has left Leonard dueling with Kevin Durant for the fictional role of "best player in the world," as deemed by NBA pundits (a discussion that necessarily leaves out, for now, the playoff-absent LeBron James).

The Raptors did their part by working with Leonard to develop the so-called "load management" program—which called for him to sit out designated games throughout the season to protect his body in this first season back from injury. He missed 22 games in all.

"It's not about me feeling tired or not playing this next game because I'm tired," Leonard said. "It's to get me to my full potential, 100 percent healthy. That's everybody's goal. That's good. That's what you want from a team. You want them to care about you, your body, and want you to be healthy."

The plan—described as a collaboration between Leonard and Alex McKechnie, the Raptors' highly regarded director of sports science—drew criticism in some quarters. It's rare for a team to willingly shut down its franchise star for a quarter of the season. But the results are unassailable. Leonard has never looked better.

The payoff is evident nightly now, in these playoffs. It could pay further dividends down the road. As a rival team executive said last winter, while explaining why he thought Leonard would ultimately stay in Toronto, "McKechnie is going to make Kawhi feel better than he's ever felt."

For his part, Leonard will confirm this much in his uniquely understated way: He feels good, great even. "MVP level?" he's asked. He won't go there yet. There's another summer of training ahead, this time with his body at full strength. But right now, there are games to play, opponents to wreck, a championship to chase.

"I'm just trying to win," Leonard said. "That's going to be the cure for everything. I don't care if you win MVP. I want to win a championship. That's my focus every year."

The speculation about his game, his future, the ramifications for this Raptors team and the rest of the NBA won't stop anytime soon, but he has no time or use for the drama. Kawhi Leonard is easy people, after all.

                                               

Howard Beck, a senior writer for Bleacher Report, has been covering the NBA full time since 1997, including seven years on the Laker beat for the Los Angeles Daily News and nine years as a staff writer for the New York Times. His coverage was honored by APSE in 2016 and 2017.

 Beck also hosts the Full 48 podcast, available on iTunes.

 Follow him on Twitter, @HowardBeck.  

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Metta World Peace joins Howard Beck to discuss his tumultuous NBA career, being open about his mental health and what he thinks of how the game has evolved. All that and more on The Full 48.

 

As the Toronto Raptors racked up 58 wins during the regular season and added several more through the first few weeks of the playoffs, they couldn't quite shake their dual nature.

Kawhi Leonard worked effectively in isolation, but the rest of the roster played with a different pace and flow when he hit the bench or took nights off. The Raptors were effectively split, almost as if they had two different personas.

In Tuesday's 125-89 obliteration of the Philadelphia 76ers, which opened up a 3-2 series lead, they fused those disparate halves and created one hell of a whole.

Take Leonard's dunk on the entire Sixers roster at the end of the first half as an example. It concluded with Toronto's singular superstar leveraging his power and skill, but it started with a collective effort to clear his path.

KAWHI SLAMS ON PHILLY 😤

(via @Raptors)pic.twitter.com/8SuTPGs0QS

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 8, 2019

Pascal Siakam sets the initial high screen, but there's Kyle Lowry looping around from behind to pin Joel Embiid to the paint. And then, as Leonard elevates, Marc Gasol gets in a slick little two-hand shove to the back of Tobias Harris, removing one last obstruction. If you really want to get into the Kumbaya spirit, Danny Green is in the corner, his deadly stroke preventing JJ Redick from even thinking about helping.

Five players worked in synergy on that set, a perfect microcosm of the balanced, tied-together effort Toronto put forth to take control of these Eastern Conference semifinals.

That dunk, by the way, was only Leonard's third field goal of the first half. He missed six of his first nine shots and finished just 7-of-16 from the field, bricking all four of his three-point attempts. He finished with 21 points, but that counts as an off night for a guy who entered Tuesday shooting 58.7 percent in the postseason.

No matter, as Siakam led the way with 25 points. Lowry and Green contributed 19 and 17 points, respectively, as Green finally heated up with five made treys in seven attempts. Gasol and Serge Ibaka joined the double-figure brigade, as well.

Amazing what happens, when more than a few Raptors score

— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) May 8, 2019

It was all hands on deck.

Regression from Leonard felt inevitable. Nobody sustains the kind of run he's been on. So when he finally logged his first field goal of the game, a transition dunk with 34.7 seconds left in the first quarter, it was encouraging that the bucket was also the product of Toronto's supporting cast.

#WeTheNorth in transition to a Kawhi JAM! #NBAPlayoffs

📺: @NBAonTNT pic.twitter.com/ojyM8ZlepS

— NBA (@NBA) May 8, 2019

Fred VanVleet stoned Jimmy Butler on an attempted post up, then snatched the ball from Embiid after Butler gave up and kicked it out. A hit-ahead pass to Norman Powell led to the Leonard jam.

Again, this wasn't Leonard pounding the dribble, working his way to within 15 feet and drilling contested pull-ups as his teammates watched. It was synergy. It was symbiosis. It was a star shining because of his team rather than glimmering in isolation.

If you're not into the broader idea of Toronto achieving some kind of cosmic unification at just the right time, fine. You can make this into one of those "the other guys finally stepped up" angles. Everyone trots those out whenever a superstar's running mates pick up some slack. But if that's as far as you want to extend the analysis, and you're not willing to buy the idea that Toronto is on the cusp of reaching a new level, you're overlooking important context.

As good as Toronto was during the year, and as dominant as Leonard looked leading into Game 5, it was always going to take time (and perhaps the pressure of a competitive series) for this collection of talent to come together.

Leonard didn't choose to be a Raptor. He was added via trade, effectively a mercenary uncommitted to staying beyond this season. Add to that another new starter in Danny Green and a disgruntled Kyle Lowry who sulked through long stretches after DeMar DeRozan's departure. Then throw in a vastly improved version of Siakam whose growth necessitated a larger role, Gasol's midseason arrival and, oh yeah, a new head coach in Nick Nurse.

Of course these guys looked disjointed at times. How could they not?

So now, in the wake of a particularly connected Game 5, isn't it reasonable to assume we're seeing a new normal? It's not like the role-player contributions were wildly out of character.

Lowry barreled into defenders, stripped rebounds from bigs and generally wrought havoc on the margins, just like always. Green drilled threes. Siakam materialized all over the court and burned the paint off the floor with his transition speed. Gasol made smart passes and played positional defense.

The only real difference was the confidence with which Leonard's support staff stepped into open shots and looked for their own offense when opportunities arose. Maybe taking the next step for the Raptors was really about everyone else pausing in their admiration of Leonard's obvious brilliance to remember that, hey, they're pretty good at what they do, too!

When Leonard turns in plays like this, it's easy to understand why some of his teammates might spend a little too much time admiring instead of self-actualizing:

Kawhi threw one down on Embiid 😳 https://t.co/97JhkTOuA2

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 8, 2019

Yes, the Sixers came unglued in a hurry on Tuesday. Embiid was clearly hampered by illness (and probably sore knees, judging by his total lack of lift). But that's just another endorsement of the idea that Toronto is becoming something greater. Embiid has been hobbled all series, and Philadelphia has suffered lapses and bouts of ineffectual play throughout. Yet both teams had won twice heading into Game 5.

Things were, by definition, even.

On Tuesday, the unified Raptors made it impossible to imagine the Sixers surviving. It was a good-to-great transformation.

The split-personality Raptors were darn good. The newly unified ones are great—more than capable of giving a fearsome Milwaukee Bucks team (currently in possession of a stranglehold 3-1 lead over the Boston Celtics) a real run.

The Raptors are coming together, which means anyone in their way is at serious risk of being torn apart.

       

Stats courtesy of Basketball Reference, Cleaning the Glass or NBA.com unless otherwise specified. Accurate through games played Tuesday, May 7.

Toronto Raptors big man Serge Ibaka already has his hands full dealing with a Philadelphia 76ers frontcourt that includes Joel Embiid, but he apparently has to worry about elbows from his own teammates as well.

Kawhi Leonard inadvertently hit Ibaka with an elbow while they were both going for a rebound during Tuesday’s Game 5, causing the big man to go to the locker room with a cut.

Blake Murphy of The Athletic noted Ibaka got three stitches before he eventually returned to the court.

Ouch 🤕 pic.twitter.com/VKUqwUHVhl

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 8, 2019

Ibaka has largely struggled in this series, scoring in single figures in the first three games and grabbing a mere one rebound in Game 2. He has also struggled to contain Embiid when Marc Gasol has been on the bench.

Still, he is a veteran leader with plenty of postseason experience, and Toronto will likely need him to emerge from the Eastern Conference for the first time in franchise history.