9781422272008

Chapter 1

Greatest Moments Legend Blooms in Springtime In today’s National Basketball Association (NBA), filled with flashy plays and look-at-me personalities, it was the quiet and humble Kawhi Leonard who orchestrated one of the greatest postseason runs in league history in 2019. It began with his impossible-to-believe, fadeaway buzzer-beater from the corner in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. That basket shoved Philadelphia out of the playoffs in the second round and instantly became one of the greatest shots in playoff history. It culminated with Leonard hauling his Toronto Raptors all the way to the NBA Finals, territory it had never traversed in franchise history, where the Raptors dethroned the mighty three-time champion Golden State Warriors in a six-game series where his play dripped with greatness. Leonard won his second award as Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the Finals. He is just the 12 th player in NBA history to win the award on multiple occasions. The six feet seven inches tall small forward joined a pantheon of first-name

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