Kawhi Leonard of the Toronto Raptors shared his thoughts after a career-night and a win over the Utah Jazz.

Leonard dropped a career-high 45 points in a 122-116 victory. In the post-game interview, Leonard commended the Jazz for staying in the game. Leonard and the Raptors, for their part, picked up their aggressiveness which led to a ton of free-throw attempts in the second half.

The 27-year-old defensive stalwart was 16-of-22 from the field and 13-of-17 from the free throw line. Apart from his scoring outburst, Kawhi Leonard also had six rebounds and one assist. He picked things up in the third quarter where he scored 19 points on 7-of-7 from the field.

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It was an effort that Leonard and the Raptors had to come up with as they missed the services of star guard Kyle Lowry for the fourth consecutive game due to a back injury.

Kawhi Leonard's big game comes in before he heads back to meet his old team, the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday. No matter how you look at it, the game is not just any other matchup. After all, Leonard has a pretty tumultuous past with the Spurs.

Leonard may be a man of a few words but you can safely assume that there's a lot of things going through his mind leading up to his first duel with Gregg Popovich.