Tim Legler

it's incredible like the difference defensively that he makes in terms of the way you process what's available to you as an offensive player.

So even on the nights when it's not tangible, he doesn't get five, six, seven, eight, he had 12 blocks in a game in the playoffs.

Even those nights he gets two blocks.

it's incalculable the number of times guys have processed how they want to play differently.

So that is the impact, the true impact of what he does defensively.

And then, look, obviously the offense isn't going to look like it did the other night every night.

You know, you can still get into him a little bit.

There's going to be nights he's a little bit off balance, and he's not strong enough to play through some of the things he's going to get.

But on the nights he is defensively,

That's what it looks like.

And now you've got this force that you just don't know what to do because he has the greatest escape, Tony, in traffic, which is the vertical escape.

When there's traffic and physicality in the lane, on the floor, on the perimeter, he has the ultimate solution.

I will escape all of this by going to a place vertically that no one else out here can get to.

And it will still give me an opportunity to play free.

And that's what you saw the other night.

Yeah, and that's when they put everybody on notice that this had arrived sooner than we thought.

When they beat them three times in ten days during the season, when the Thunder looked unbeatable.

It looked like a foregone conclusion that the Thunder were going to be repeat champions.

And then that happened.

And you started to go, okay, they're maybe a little bit more susceptible than you think.