With Pau Gasol and Tony Parker both on the shelf, you’d think the San Antonio Spurs wouldn’t bench Kawhi Leonard because of a slightly injured hand.
You’d think that, yes, but you’d be wrong.
San Antonio has held Leonard out of its last two games as he deals with a sore left hand he injured during the team’s Saturday night win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. Though this isn’t being spun as a monstrous setback, the Spurs seem intent on playing it safe with their franchise cornerstone, per Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News:
A little more than an hour before tipoff Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre, Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard seemed poised to return from a one-game hiatus due to a sore left hand.
After consulting with his leading scorer, coach Gregg Popovich opted to keep Leonard on ice for another night.
“We just decided it was the safe thing to do,” Popovich said after the Spurs won for the second night in a row without Leonard, 108-106 over the Raptors. “I’d rather err on the side of being conservative than lose him for three weeks because he gets whacked again.”
Leonard jammed the hand a little more than a week ago, then aggravated it Saturday in Cleveland en route to scoring a career-high 41 points.
Earlier this week, Popovich called Leonard’s ailment “an injury that’s not an injury,” noting there was no break or any other structural damage.
This is clearly the smart play. The Spurs have the second-best record in the league and a 3.5-game cushion over the third-place Houston Rockets. And they won’t play another opponent above .500 until Jan. 31 (Oklahoma City Thunder). Only two of their next 11 games, in fact, come versus teams who currently own winning records.
Not that the strength of schedule particularly matters. The Spurs would hold out Leonard even if they were playing the Golden State Warriors in the event they deemed it useful to the big picture. That’s how they work; it’s how they’ve always worked.
And they have the luxury to continue working this way, because they remain a demonstrative plus per 100 possessions even when Leonard is off the floor, according NBA.com.
Spurs gonna Spurs.
Sometimes that entails sitting Leonard as a precaution, other times that involves beating the Toronto Raptors with three starters missing.
On Tuesday night, it consisted of both.
