The internet went crazy for two distinct reasons on Sunday night, with the sports nerds and the nerd nerds freaking out in equal measure. But for all the attention that Kawhi Leonard generated with his heart-stopping Game 7 buzzer beater, the Toronto Raptors star is too focused on the rest of the playoffs to notice.
After a team practice on May 14, Leonard seemed genuinely shocked about the impact that his rim-rattling three had in Canada and the NBA fandom at large. A reporter referred to the shot — which is almost definitely the greatest moment in the history of the Raptors — as a "Canadian heritage moment" and Leonard was caught off-guard.
"That's the first time I heard that," he said. "I mean pretty much everybody congratulated me and the team just on the win. But no, I don't know the ripple effect of it yet."
He carried on in that way, saying that the excitement around team facilities is more focused on advancing than the way in which they did it.
"I mean I'm pretty sure everybody is excited just for us moving to the next round," he said. "But I'm not sure."
Whether or not Leonard's shot goes down in the history of the Great White North, it's already made the NBA record books. For all of the iconic buzzer beaters we've seen, there has never been one quite like Leonard's. It's the first game-winning buzzer-beater in a Game 7 in the history of the NBA playoffs.
