When San Antonio’s Big Three of

Wow.

He had an offensive rating (the rate at which his team scored points with him on the floor extrapolated over 100 possessions) of 180.5 in that first quarter, and a 131.8 for the game. Compared to the Spurs’ postseason offensive rating of 111.9 - which is impressive in its own right - that’s downright absurd.

Much like the Spurs in the fourth quarter of Game 1, Kawhi was essentially efficient beyond the capacity of the metrics we use to measure such things in that first quarter and he kept up that torrid pace for the better part of the game.

Kawhi’s counterpart, LeBron James, played an excellent game as well, and his stat line in the first quarter and the game as a whole would rival Leonard’s by most accounts, apart from a few key differences. LeBron’s 7 turnovers to Kawhi’s 1 stands out, but nothing is more eye popping than the difference in plus-minus.

By the end of the game, Kawhi was a +19 and King James was a -21.

For as good as LeBron was and ultimately is, Kawhi was simply better in this contest. Similarly, the Heat are the two-time champions, but the Spurs looked every bit the contender with Kawhi in the driver’s seat.

Leonard’s efficiency was a big part of the story, and he did a bit of everything on the offensive end, but his accomplishments are made all the more impressive by his abilities on the defensive end. The fact that he became the youngest person in NBA history (at age 22) to score 25-plus points in a Finals game while shooting over 75.0% from the field is astonishing in and of itself. But the fact that he did it while chasing around the best basketball player on the planet for the majority of his 40 minutes played, on the road, in dominant 111-92 victory? That’s what makes it a performance for the ages.

And with that, the Spurs have a 72.64% likelihood to take this series, according to our algorithms. For as much as that eventuality would be discussed as Duncan’s fifth championship, or Parker and Ginobili’s fourth, one mustn’t forget that this would be Kawhi Leonard’s first. We’re so caught up in discussing legacies at their end, we might be missing one at its beginning.

Leonard went out in Game 3, took the court with no fewer than seven future Hall of Famers, and outplayed every last one of them, making history in the process. For that, it’s high time we stopped this nonsense of calling the Spurs a “Big Three” and call them a “Big Four”. As much as Kawhi was supposed to be the Spur of tomorrow, he has clearly arrived early and earned the right to be discussed in the present tense.

Just don’t expect him to join in on the conversation.