{"id":551177,"date":"2019-11-11T13:47:37","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T18:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=551177"},"modified":"2019-11-11T17:44:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T22:44:15","slug":"nick-nurse-kawhi-leonard-was-cruising-to-his-30-points-a-night-in-regular-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/news\/nba\/nick-nurse-kawhi-leonard-was-cruising-to-his-30-points-a-night-in-regular-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Nurse: Kawhi Leonard Was &#8216;Cruising to His 30 Points a Night&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/tag\/kawhi-leonard\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kawhi Leonard<\/a> was &#8220;cruising to his 30 points a night&#8221; during the 2018-19 regular season, according to Raptors head coach <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/tag\/nick-nurse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nick Nurse<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nurse wondered if Leonard &#8220;was going to flip a switch&#8221; and received an emphatic answer during the NBA Playoffs, when the reigning Finals MVP led Toronto to their first-ever championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Doc Rivers on Kawhi: &quot;He is good at blocking out the noise&quot; | NBA Sound\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lq3ExO0PsYU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Kawhi is looking forward to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/28043696\/kawhi-leonard-ready-fun-reunion-raptors-visit-clippers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a &#8220;fun&#8221; reunion<\/a> Monday night with his now-former teammates as the LA Clippers play host to the Raps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Toronto Raptors are in town tonight and tomorrow to face Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard, two players who helped transform a franchise. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ekoreen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ekoreen<\/a> talked to current and former Raptors about the good times and the reunions, which hold no bitterness.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xSRX9V7bdp\">https:\/\/t.co\/xSRX9V7bdp<\/a><\/p>&mdash; The Athletic L.A. (@TheAthleticLA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheAthleticLA\/status\/1193709931909677057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 11, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Per <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/1364100\/2019\/11\/10\/in-their-own-words-how-kawhi-leonard-and-danny-green-changed-the-raptors-forever\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Athletic<\/a><\/em>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><em><strong>Nick Nurse:<\/strong> &#8220;There were several times and team meetings that I thought (Leonard) kind of inserted himself into our team. I know you probably remember me talking a lot about his leadership, and that got to be a big story, people saying he\u2019s not a leader and this and that. I wasn\u2019t making that up. That was probably early on. I think we were probably 13-4 or something and we were having a little meeting about how the offence was running, and he kind of stepped up and said to the team, &#8216;This is how I see it.&#8217; He couldn\u2019t have said it better, for me. It was perfect.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><p><em><strong>Fred VanVleet:<\/strong> &#8220;Obviously, he didn\u2019t talk a lot. I think it took a long time for him to open up to us. I think for him to become open and trust us on the court \u2014 off the court, he was great \u2014 but on the court, I think we saw over the course of the year him open up and trust us, the entire team. I think him and Kyle had a good chemistry pretty early. And you could see it gradually happen for the entire team.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><p><em><strong>Marc Gasol:<\/strong> &#8220;He speaks when needed. That, to me, is a great trait of a leader. When the team needs it, he has a voice, a voice that everyone listens to. He speaks the right stuff, cares about the right stuff. It was awesome. \u2026 I\u2019ll keep it in the locker room. I have a lot of respect for the locker room stuff. But he\u2019s always, always on point and never negative. Always balanced, always steady. You see him out there, and that\u2019s the way he is. He\u2019s not dramatic at all. He never has highs or lows. He\u2019s always steady and on course.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><p><em><strong>Nurse:<\/strong> &#8220;I\u2019m not sure I ever said this publicly last year, but about February of last year, I was like: &#8216;He\u2019s not playing to his full capabilities. He\u2019s cruising to his 30 points a night.&#8217; I figured it could go one of two ways. He was gonna cruise on out of here or he was going to flip a switch and try to win the whole damn thing. Obviously, we saw what happened.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/nba\/nick-nurse-cant-blame-kawhi-leonard-for-joining-the-la-clippers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nick Nurse: &#8216;Can&#8217;t Blame&#8217; Kawhi Leonard for Joining the LA Clippers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kawhi Leonard was &#8220;cruising to his 30 points a night&#8221; during the 2018-19 regular season, according to Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. Nurse wondered if Leonard &#8220;was going to flip a switch&#8221; and received an emphatic answer during the NBA Playoffs, when the reigning Finals MVP led Toronto to their first-ever championship. Kawhi is looking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":551131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2717,62979,62523,51633,95],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-551177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-mantle","tag-nick-nurse","tag-toronto-raptors"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551177"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551199,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551177\/revisions\/551199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551177"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=551177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}