Kawhi Leonard added to his defensive rep by stealing from his own teammate
Kawhi Leonard does not need to do much to convince people he’s an elite defender. The San Antonio Spurs superstar has won the NBA’s last two Defensive Player of the Year awards, gets plenty of notice as the league’s unofficial best perimeter defender, and takes his man out of the game so effectively that he arguably makes it harder for the other four players to defend as a team. There are few things tougher in the sport than trying to score on Leonard in a one-on-one situation.
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That goes for his teammates, too. With just over 9:30 remaining in the third quarter of Thursday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets, Pau Gasol held the ball near the top of the key looking for a pass to an open teammate. He didn’t have to find one, though, because Leonard grabbed the ball from him and made his way to the hoop for a short shot over the defending Danilo Gallinari. Take a look:
Kawhi’s brazen move is the highlight here, but please don’t sleep on Pau’s attempt to sell the contact from what he assumed was a pushy defender. You have to admire the resourcefulness from both players.
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Leonard finished the night with 24 points in a comfortable 127-99 win for San Antonio, but none of the others were as funny as his latest bullying incident. Gasol put up 17 points (7-of-8 FG) and four assists, although none of them came on this play.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
