Become a Lockdown Like Kawhi Leonard

No one in basketball media will argue against Kawhi Leonard being the best defensive player in the NBA. He's remember thus far in his career for shutting down Lebron James in the NBA final in route to winning a championship with the San Antonio Spurs. He is tasked every game with guarding the opposing teams' best offensive player

Many players in the modern generation of basketball are offensively heavy players. Most athletes will focus their training on improving their offensive game. Even the main statistics for comparison are points and assists. All most fans care about are those 2 stats. If player averages 5.5 points and 3 assists, many would say that person is a bad player. But they may be ignorant, or not even care about the defensive efforts of that player. The 2-way players, offensive and defensive, should be the standard. Kawhi Leonard gives his all on both ends of the floor, and that's what makes him so special.

Let's take a look at the video above and break down strategies that Leonard used to disrupt one of the NBA's best players of all time in Lebron James.

1. Kawhi Leonard makes and extensive effort to use his hands to disrupt his opponent. He swipes at the ball repeatedly and puts his hands in his face in effort to block his vision of the basket and his teammates.

2. Leonard hustles to fight over each and every screen. A defender must work hard on defense. Many athletes use the defensive side of the game to take their rest. But a great defender fights each and every defensive series to make it tough for the offense to be successful. If you work hard, you are surely forcing your opponent to work hard.

3. Kawhi understands the available passing lanes to a team. He clogs these lanes by standing right in the middle of them while maintaining an eye on where the ball is and where his assigned man to guard is. In this way, he is able to be aware of all things happing around the ball and your assignment and it puts yourself in position to make big plays on defense.

4. Not only does Kawhi lockdown his opponent, you also see him all around the court guarding other players at the same time. Often does he come in for a blindsided double team in order to make things twice as hard for a player. You've got to be careful when timing these double teams. You want to double when you know you can recover quickly or does not hold a lot of skill, or the when the shot clock is going down.