For years, the Toronto Raptors ran into the one unstoppable player in the Eastern Conference. Now, they might have the beast of the East: Kawhi Leonard.

LeBron James stood in Toronto's way the past few seasons, just as Bron was the ultimate roadblock for every other team in the Eastern Conference dating back to 2011, when he began his eight-year streak of consecutive NBA Finals appearances with the Miami Heat.

With LeBron finally in the West, a power vacuum has been created in the East. Very clearly, Kawhi Leonard has become the East's best postseason player in 2019.

Whether Kawhi has enough to carry the Raptors to the NBA Finals is still very much unknown; he still has a lot of work to merely get out of the second round against the Philadelphia 76ers. Yet, after carrying the Raptors on his back one more time in a Game 4 win on Sunday, Kawhi has knotted this series at 2-2, restored Toronto's home-court advantage, and given his teammates new hope that they can become as great as they expect to be.

Kawhi Leonard has to lead Toronto to the Finals to fully merit a LeBron comparison in all the ways that truly matter, but this much can already be acknowledged: Midway through the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, Kawhi is the closest thing to LeBron in the East. The stats tell the story, as does Toronto's moment-of-truth victory in a must-have Game 4:

The numbers are huge and eye-popping, and moreover, they are consistent. These realities are substantial in their own right, and they clearly magnify what Kawhi is doing in the East playoffs. Yet, they represent an incomplete account of everything Kawhi is contributing to the Raptors.

Consider:

— Nick Nurse has coached poorly, by most measurements, in this series.

— Pascal Siakam was physically limited due to injury in Game 4. He gutted out 28 important minutes, but he is far below 100-percent capacity.

— Kyle Lowry and Marc Gasol were certainly better in Game 4 than in Game 3, but neither one caught fire. They helped Toronto by being “better than bad,” not by being transcendent.

— The Toronto bench had Serge Ibaka and no one else.

Kawhi Leonard needed to score 39 points on Sunday. He has needed to score 152 points in this series just to keep Toronto afloat.

This is what a LeBron-style postseason looks like. We'll see if it continues.