LA Clippers: It’s time to follow Kawhi Leonard’s lead in the NBA playoffs

The LA Clippers have lost Game 2. Everybody was healthy and the team didn’t play well in the NBA playoffs. What to do now? Follow Kawhi Leonard.

Defeat has to happen. For rebirth, death has to occur. Kawhi Leonard and the LA Clippers will have to learn this after their recent loss in the NBA playoffs.

It’s time to go on a run.

The Clippers had a horrible shooting night in Game 2 against the Denver Nuggets. A night that had to most likely do with fatigue than anything else.

The Denver Nuggets are a second-round opponent. Everybody sleeps on number two and everybody loves number three. Number one is always in the past.

The great ones have a chink in the armor or a flaw of some sort. It’s what makes them able to live amongst us. Superman and kryptonite come to mind. The Nuggets found that even the resilient Clippers have a metaphorical kryptonite.

Kawhi Leonard, who has always been consistent, went 4-for-17 and 0-for-3 from 3-point range. He was also a minus-16.

Here’s what Leonard said about how the Denver Nuggets defense contained him:

"“They just had more aggressiveness in their double teams and collapsed the paint. A few easy ones didn’t fall early and that was it from there pretty much. We got into a lot of iso basketball. Basically dug ourselves in that hole.”"

Denver’s discipline was underdog heavyweight champion like. They did the impossible. They stopped Kawhi Leonard.]

The Dallas Mavericks had fits. Nobody could stop Leonard in the Eastern Conference last year.

What the Nuggets did in Game 2 was nothing short of amazing. They did it with a Leonardo D’ Vinci like attention to detail.

Yes, amazing it was but now the Clippers have to close out the series.

Leonard has to reinvent himself.

History has told us that the big man has always been the best player on a basketball team. To be able to win a championship your best player has to replicate the talents of a dominant big man.

Shaquille O’ Neal was Shaquille O’Neal. Michael Jordan had a Wilt Chamberlain-like efficiency from the mid-range.

Leonard has to put his back to the basket.

In that position, he can see the double team. He can facilitate to others and create further problems for the opponent.

Hero ball was the downfall of the Clippers in Game 2. Players were trying to put it all on their shoulders. That’s not going to work.

Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever.

Your best player has to be able to create open shots for his teammates of the team can’t flourish.

What will happen next for the Clippers? Well, that answer is simple. It’s time to go on a streak and end the series.

Head coach Doc Rivers will rally the troops. Great teams do not make mental errors twice.

Rivers said this about the Game 2 blunder:

"“I thought offensively, we just refused to move the ball. As beautiful as our ball movement was in Game 1, it was the exact opposite tonight.”"

Winning three straight games is difficult. A Game 3 victory in the NBA playoffs is a start. A win essentially ends the series.  You know what they say about trilogies.

The second one is always the worst. The third one finishes everything.