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Behind the face: Leonard’s comeback

Column by Buck Harvey

LOS ANGELES — They didn’t like Kawhi Leonard Saturday. They were in awe of him.

A few members of the Spurs’ brass stood in a Staples Center hallway trying to find the proper superlative. And, fitting of Leonard, the best compliment was a non-verbal one.

A Spurs official put his hand in front of his face, then lowered it slowly, to show the universal sign for expressionless cool.

That was Leonard, the rookie, on the road, with the Spurs being crushed in the first half.

“He might have been,” the official said, “the steadiest on the floor.”

He might have been the best Spur, too, and that brings up something that should have been understood long ago by people who insist on comparing him to Bruce Bowen. Leonard isn’t Bowen.

Leonard has twice the talent. He can rebound, muscle, dribble and pass. Bowen struggled with all four.

And while Bowen needed time to find a place in the league at age 30, Leonard is there at 20.

Add to that what Bowen did so well, such as shoot the corner three and play defense, and the package is rare. It was all on display Saturday, when Leonard alternated between chasing Chris Paul and bumping with Blake Griffin.

“He’s the one guy nobody ever talks about,” Manu Ginobili said afterward. And maybe he’s also the reason many don’t understand where this 17-in-a-row success has come from. The Spurs have found a young, long, efficient athlete who fills a position that has been lacking since, well, Bowen left.

His composure might be his most impressive trait. Leonard grew up in the area, so he had family and friends here, and yet he reacted to the early rout by not reacting.

“I don’t think he ever gets excited,” Tim Duncan said Saturday. “He’s absolutely even keel the entire time. I think he’s even more mellow than me, if that’s possible.”

Duncan consciously works to keep a poker face. Leonard is a natural.

And it’s not that Leonard has an absence of expression; it’s what is there in place of one. Leonard has permanent sorrow, the look of a sad clown, and it rarely changes.

He was the same after the game Saturday, when the media surrounded him and asked how he thought he did against Griffin.

“I think I did pretty well,” he said, while his faced suggested he had failed miserably.

He never talks to refs, which is smart for a rookie, and he doesn’t say much to his teammates, either. But, according to Stephen Jackson, Leonard has a favorite expression.

“Grind hard.”

The Spurs needed exactly that Saturday. Leonard sat down late in the first quarter after the Clippers jumped out to a 23-9 lead. By the time he came back, the Spurs were losing by 21.

Gregg Popovich later repeated what he often says, that these early leads always scare coaches, because the games are “so doggone long.” But how doggone long would Popovich have stuck with his starters had the Clippers kept their lead?

With another game tonight, Popovich might have been one quarter away from conceding.

So what happened at the end of the first half mattered, and Leonard started it. He hit a runner. Then, after Tony Parker missed, Leonard kept the rebound alive. The basketball fell into Duncan’s arms, and he got the score.

Grind hard, all right.

By the end of the half, the sense was that the Spurs were in control. ?Leonard took that further to start the third quarter, with a three and later a steal that set up a Parker layup.

How the Spurs pulled even: A three-point play inside by Leonard.

“Kawhi sure does not look like a rookie,” Popovich said at a news conference.

And outside the room, standing in the hallway, a Spurs official put his hand in front of his face, then lowered it slowly.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA

SPURS VS. CLIPPERS
(Spurs lead best-of-seven series 2-0)

Game 1:

Game 2:

Game 3:

Game 4: Sunday, @Clippers, 9:30 p.m., TNT

* Game 5: Tuesday, @Spurs, TBA, TNT

* Game 6: Friday, @Clippers, TBA, ESPN

* Game 7: May 27, @Spurs, TBA, TNT

* If necessary

Hollins accuses CP3 of being ‘a flopper’

Best-of-seven series tend to rachet up the emotion of competing teams as they see each other more often than in the regular season.

That familiarity-breeds-contempt attitude has certainly been true in the Memphis-Los Angeles Clippers. The games have been tight with the Clippers claiming a 3-1 edge in the best-of-seven series after their victory Monday night in Los Angeles.

It sounds like Memphis coach Lionel Hollins is starting to see a little bit too much of Chris Paul of the Clippers, at least if his comments made during an in-game interview with TNT are any indication.

When asked why he inserted defensive stopper Tony Allen on Paul rather than Memphis point guard Mike Conley, Hollins had a specific reason.

“We just want a bigger stronger guy to get in and save Mike a couple of fouls early on because Chris does a good job of flopping and drawing fouls,” Hollins told interviewer Jaime Maggio. “We just want to make sure we kept him out of that.”

The look on Hollins faced when he answered the question, as can be seen below in the You Tube clip of the story, clearly shows his exasperation.

Spurs go streaking into L.A.

By Jeff McDonald

LOS ANGELES — The question was meant to be a brainteaser. The answer was not supposed to come so easily.

When Tony Parker was asked recently to name the last time his Spurs had lost a game, he could have at least paused a beat and pretended to wrack his brain.

“It was the Lakers,” Parker said, without hesitation.

Consider it proof Parker’s memory isn’t yet failing him, even at the ripe age of 30.

Los Angeles Lakers 98, Spurs 84. That was the last time the Spurs walked off the floor at the ATT Center, or anywhere else, in defeat.

That was April 11. That was 16 wins and 38 days ago.

As the top-seeded Spurs hit the Staples Center today — up a dominating 2-0 in the Western Conference semifinals against Southern California’s other team, marching toward what feels like an inevitable conference final against Oklahoma City — they do so trying to convince themselves of something that doesn’t seem readily apparent.

“We’re not unbeatable,” Parker said. “Anybody can beat anybody. We have to play our best basketball to go far.”

Not unbeatable?

Utah’s Al Jefferson wasn’t so sure during the Spurs’ first-round sweep.

Having dropped the first two games of the second round by a combined 33 points, the fifth-seeded Clippers must be having doubts now, too.

“Right now, everybody’s ?eating,” said Chris Paul, the Clippers’ hobbled and struggling point guard. “Now we go to L.A. and see if we can cut off the water a little.”

The series moves to Hollywood for Games 3 and 4 today and Sunday. It’s going to take more than a change of scenery to close down the Spurs’ buffet line.

During their 16-game run, the Spurs have won by an average of 17.1 points. The 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks, who won 16 in a row by 19.5 points, are the only team in NBA history to top that.

As for the part about the Spurs needing to play their best basketball? They aren’t sure they’ve done it yet.

Coach Gregg Popovich went into Thursday grumbling about 18 turnovers and at-times unfocused transition defense in Game 1.

In Game 2, the Spurs gave up 9 of 13 from the 3-point line, a 69.2-percent clip for the Clippers. They still won by 17 points, but who, besides Popovich, is counting?

“That’s what coaches do,” Popovich said. “We have the film, so you can see all kinds of mistakes. We can play better, but they can too.”

Forgive center Boris Diaw for wondering how much better the Spurs can play. They are 26-2 since his arrival from Charlotte on March 23.

“It’s pretty easy to adjust to this team, because of the way they’re playing,” said Diaw, who followed 12 rebounds in Game 1 with 16 points in Game 2. “They’re playing smart basketball.”

No Spurs team has won more than 17 in a row, a streak they can equal today.

Quick prediction: The Spurs will lose again sometime in franchise history. It might even happen during this rare playoff back-to-back, a byproduct of the cramped lockout schedule.

The last time the Spurs played two postseason games in two nights, they closed down the Great Western Forum with a pair of victories over the Lakers in the 1999 conference semis.

Superstitious Spurs fans should enjoy the symmetry. That team went on to win the franchise’s first title in a lockout-shortened season.

“We’re out here for one goal,” said Tim Duncan, who averaged 22 points in the first two games against the Clippers. “We’ve got a team we believe can challenge for that.”

That’s why the Spurs seem so unimpressed with their winning streak, why Popovich doesn’t want to answer questions about it and why players don’t want to think about it.

Sixteen wins mean little when there are still 10 more to go.

“For us, it’s good to not look at that and concentrate on the task,” Parker said. “We should focus on Game 3 and not on the winning streak.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN