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Rare footage of Kawhi Leonard putting his game face on

From hilarity to supreme focus in less than 6 seconds.

By J.R. Wilco
J Pat Carter/Getty Images

Kawhi Leonard smiles. He does. He smiled after the Spurs won the championship in 2014. He smiled as he was handed the NBA Finals MVP trophy. And the other day, he smiled when Manu Ginobili said something funny on the bench during a blowout. Do a Google search for "Kawhi Leonard smile" and click images to see a lot of pictures that show that if Kawhi is a robot, he's at least been programmed to smile on occasion.

But he doesn't smile much on the court, especially not after good plays, so there aren't a lot of opportunities for us to see the smile in its native habitat. And when he does smile, it's fleeting. But Monday night in Brooklyn, after sharing a laugh with Tony Parker, Kawhi was caught laughing, smiling, and then quickly settling down to get back to business. Here's the clip.

I watch every game the Spurs play, and this is the best example I've ever seen of Kawhi doing this. You can almost see him go from thinking, "Ha. That was funny, Tony." To, "Ok, enough of that. What defense are we in again?"

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