NBA: Steve Kerr’s defensive blueprint for stopping Leonard’s scoring high

The tactical target on the main threat

The play-in brings instant pressure. No easing in, no warm-up act. The Golden State Warriors face the Los Angeles Clippers, and the California outfit has one clear priority: choke off Kawhi Leonard’s offence. Head coach Steve Kerr has confirmed Draymond Green has done plenty of the film-room work ahead of this one, with the veteran big man helping oversee the defensive setup.

Leonard’s form makes the obsession easy to understand. Kawhi Leonard finishes the regular season averaging 27,9 points a game, a career best. With James Harden’s exit to Cleveland, his shot volume has gone up by default. And the Clippers’ attack now leans almost entirely on what he can produce.

The 2019 reminder

Leonard’s current condition brings back a very specific nightmare for the San Francisco franchise. Draymond Green draws a straight line back to the NBA Finals seven years ago. Toronto’s title run was built around a similar level of output. Back then, Leonard was putting up 28,5 points a night against a Warriors side that was physically drained and running on fumes.

The defensive plan being talked up here is not about shutting him down completely. That’s fantasy. It’s about dragging the numbers down. Lower the shooting percentage. Make every catch harder. Mess with the angles. Green has laid it out plainly: the aim is to force more shots for the same return.

A straight-up one-on-one fight

Pulling that off will take a packed, disciplined rotation. Golden State are already short-handed on the wing with Jimmy Butler unavailable in this stretch. Even so, the real crux of the whole thing is the head-to-head battle between Green and Leonard.

Stephen Curry is buying into that reading. The point guard sees this matchup as the biggest mental edge for his teammate, a chess match built on breaking the other man’s rhythm. That’s been the Warriors big man’s defensive calling card for years: get into people, ruin their timing, make every possession feel ugly.

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