On Monday night, America -- at least the parts of it still awake at 11 p.m. Eastern time -- was introduced to an unlikely hero who helped keep the Portland Trail Blazers' season alive. A game after playing just five minutes, he posted a double-double off the bench and changed the tenor of a series that had been dominated by the Memphis Grizzlies. Meet Meyers Leonard, the 7-footer with a Justin Bieber haircut and Stephen Curry's shooting percentages.
Blazers' starters struggle
The pregame assumption was the biggest lineup change between Games 3 and 4 of the Blazers-Grizzlies series would be the absence of Memphis starting point guard Mike Conley, who suffered multiple facial fractures during the third quarter of the Grizzlies' Game 3 win and returned to Memphis for surgery. The Grizzlies have yet to offer a long-term prognosis as they wait for Conley's swelling to go down, but he's almost certainly out for the remainder of the series.
Yet with Nick Calathes making a career-high-tying four 3-pointers in his first start since February 2014, and Beno Udrih returning from a sprained ankle to run the second unit, Memphis didn't really miss a beat at point guard. Calathes and Udrih combined for 25 points on 9-of-20 shooting, six assists, three steals and three turnovers. With Calathes at the point, the Grizzlies' starters outscored their Portland counterparts 28-12, beginning the game with an 8-2 run and the second half with a 14-2 run.
With the starters scuffling, enter Leonard and fellow young reserve C.J. McCollum.
Meyers' rise
In Game 3, Leonard was an afterthought. He played well in the first two games of the series, combining for 17 points and 16 rebounds in 34 minutes, but the return of veteran center Chris Kaman from a sprained ankle pushed Leonard to the fringe of Terry Stotts' rotation. He played just five minutes in the Blazers' 115-109 loss and didn't get off the bench after halftime.
With Portland down early on Monday night, Leonard was Stotts' first substitution in the frontcourt, and neither he nor McCollum left the court after checking in early in each half. While McCollum was a game-changer in his own right -- his crucial baskets in the fourth quarter led Memphis coach Dave Joerger to declare "we've got serious problems right now with C.J. McCollum" -- that wasn't a major surprise after he scored 26 points in Game 3 and averaged 13.5 points over the last 15 games of the regular season.
Leonard, by contrast, didn't seem to register with the Grizzlies' defense at first, getting open looks from the perimeter. He made all five of his shots in the first half, including three 3-pointers in as many attempts. That kind of shooting is no fluke. Though he didn't meet the statistical minimums to qualify, Leonard -- not Curry or Kyle Korver -- posted the NBA's only 50/40/90 season, shooting 51.0 percent from the field, 42.0 percent on 3s and 93.8 percent from the free throw line.
Because he developed into a perimeter threat so quickly -- he didn't make a single 3-pointer last season and had just three during his rookie campaign -- Leonard benefited from not appearing on opponents' scouting reports much of the season. Add the difficulty for traditional big men defending on the perimeter and his talented teammates, like LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard, and Leonard got a lot of open looks. A lot.
Per SportVU tracking on NBA.com/Stats, more than two-thirds of Leonard's 3-point attempts (67.8 percent, to be exact) were "wide open" -- with no defender closer than six feet away. By contrast, less than a third of Curry's 3-pointers (31.8 percent) were wide open.
Leonard shooting creates space
When defenses start to pay attention to Leonard beyond the arc, that benefits the Blazers' offense, too. Leonard didn't score after halftime, and took only one shot (a tip-in try), yet Stotts praised his impact on the game.
"Even though Meyers didn't score in the second half, his presence out there allowed a lot of penetration," Stotts said. "Because he made shots, he was a threat and pulls their bigs away from the basket."
One play in particular from late in the third quarter stands out. After Lillard turned the corner past Marc Gasol on a pick-and-roll, he found no resistance at the rim because Memphis' other big man, Zach Randolph, was glued to Leonard in the ball-side corner.
Portland's other big men, including starter Robin Lopez, don't provide that same kind of spacing. And that's why Stotts has to consider starting Leonard and McCollum in Wednesday night's Game 5. He didn't change his rotation in the second half, but that was before the starting lineup got blitzed again in the third quarter. Playing on the road, the Blazers may not be able to dig out of that kind of deficit again.
America meets Meyers
Another big Leonard performance at a slightly earlier hour (Game 5 will tip off at 9:30 p.m. ET) could continue to increase his profile. During halftime of TNT's broadcast of Game 4, Shaquille O'Neal took to calling Leonard "Baby Sabonis" after Arvydas Sabonis, the Hall of Fame center who also wore No. 11 in Portland. When that comment was relayed to Leonard after the game, it drew a chuckle.
"I've got a long way to go before I can be considered a Sabonis," he said.
Leonard may not be a Sabonis, but another game like Monday night's would bring him closer to making a name for himself in the NBA.