The Brooklyn Nets defeated the Los Angeles Clippers in Tuesday night's highly anticipated showdown between the two powerhouse teams. Kevin Durant scored 28 points on an ultra-efficient 11-of-13 shooting from the field. Kawhi Leonard scored 33 for the Clippers on 12-of-24 from the field.

The contest unsurprisingly featured a lot of back-and-forths between Leonard, Durant, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, and James Harden, but it was a 21-6 fourth-quarter run for Brooklyn that was the game-changer.

After the game, Kevin Durant spoke with members of the media and was asked particularly about how to defend a star like Leonard.

“He's just a savant,” Durant explained. “He plays the game at his pace. He is in control out there of the offensive plays. He's a three-level scorer, so you've just gotta be ready for him to do anything out there. I tried to close out, not let him beat me on the drive because he's strong driving to his right, but he also can shoot the 3 and the mid-range so it's tough.

“Just trying to make him shoot over my length and not give him anything easy. But he's a great player, he's a Hall of Fame player, so just gotta make his shots tough.”

This isn't the first time Durant has given glowing reviews about the Clippers star. In 2019, Durant went on “EBRO In The Morning” and detailed just why Kawhi Leonard is so hard to stop.

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“Players don’t [sleep on him]. He’s got the longest paragraph on the scouting report. We go through an in-depth scouting report before the game. He can pretty much do everything. You can’t dribble around him cuz he’s gonna steal the ball. It’s still tough for me to pull out all my shit against Kawhi.”

Kevin Durant also went on his Boardroom platform to do a Q&A a few months later, where he mentioned Leonard as one of the top-five toughest players to guard in the NBA.

“I didn’t see [his comments], but I appreciate him,” Leonard responded when asked if he'd heard the comments. “It just shows me how hard I’ve worked. Coming in, playing him in the playoffs my first year, I wasn’t a go-to guy at all. That’s a great honor to hear him say that.”

Durant's respect for Leonard, especially publicly, continues to show just how far Kawhi has come over the years, from being a successful player with the San Antonio Spurs because of the “system” to leading his teams to NBA titles as a bona fide superstar.