On Monday night, the LA Clippers finished off their eighth consecutive victory with a shellacking of the Indiana Pacers on the road. Once again riding the strong play of their stars, LA soundly defeated one of the best offensive teams in the association.
With 13 wins in their last 16 contests, the Clippers truly look like a juggernaut. Everything is clicking for them right now, but much of their success can be attributed to their clear best player: Kawhi Leonard.
Against Indiana, Kawhi put up 28 points on 12-for-18 shooting. It was his latest outing in what has become a series of high-efficiency shooting games. Leonard has always been known as an efficient scorer, but what he has been doing lately is impressive even by his standards.
Kawhi has been playing lights-out offensively
Just a few short weeks ago, there were questions being raised about Kawhi Leonard among fans and other viewers. After he shot an uncharacteristic 16% and 38% against Dallas and Denver respectively, talk about his conditioning began to arise. "Is Kawhi okay?" "Is his body failing him?"
In the end, these questions were based on an extremely small sample size and simply over-reactionary as a whole. Over the course of the Clippers' eight-game winning streak, Leonard has logged 29.3 points per game on 62.3% from the field and 54.8% from three-point range, not to mention 95.1% from the free throw line.
These are just mind boggling numbers, and they are clear indicators that Kawhi Leonard is more than fine. In fact, he is playing as well as ever. Maintaining this level of shooting efficiency over multiple weeks is incredibly hard to do, and it is something only an all-time great offensive talent like Kawhi could achieve.
On top of everything else, Leonard is still yet to miss a game this season. There is certainly a long way to go, but no one could have hoped for a better start to his season than what we have been seeing.