5 NBA things to watch for on Christmas Day

3. Bulls vs. Spurs

With how good the Spurs have been this year, there’s still some oddness to their post-Tim Duncan existence. Most notably, there’s the issue that they’ve been better defensively with Kawhi Leonard off the floor. CBS’ Matt Moore has best explained this phenomenon by arguing that maybe Leonard is too good at defense (and his teammates not so good) that whoever he guards basically gets ignored on offense. Teams, for the most part, aren’t even trying to go at him.

On Christmas Day, we might get a chance to see what San Antonio’s counter to this strategy is. A few weeks back, the Bulls beat the Spurs in a game where Jimmy Butler — their best player and primary creator — only shot 4-14 from the field. By ignoring Leonard — and doing things like posting Robin Lopez and letting Dwyane Wade go iso instead — the Bulls took Kawhi out of the game. If they have a counter, this might be the game we see it in. It’s also still early enough for Gregg Popovich to experiment and find a way to stop teams from removing Leonard’s big advantage.

My suggestion: put Danny Green on Butler for stretches, put Leonard on Wade and let him roam more than he would/could if he was stuck to Butler. You’d have to switch back if Butler gets going — and he’s having a really, really good season so far — but it’s worth going for it. The Spurs did do this in the first meeting with mixed results, but it’s certainly better than letting Kawhi stay isolated entirely.