All that changed when Diaz stepped up on less than two weeks’ notice to fight the seemingly unstoppable McGregor at UFC 196 in March.

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A heavy underdog, Diaz ate McGregor’s potent left hand without ill effect in the first round and turned it up in the second, buzzing the tired Irishman with punch after punch. Finally, an exhausted and rocked McGregor shot for a bad takedown, and Diaz capitalized by getting to his opponent’s back and finishing with a choke.

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It was a huge upset and by far the biggest win of Diaz’s career. Moreover, the victory over McGregor validated the Stockton, Calif. native’s long and largely unnoticed process of improvement from a talented but inconsistent gatekeeper to one of the very best lightweights in the world.

Diaz is one of the best pure boxers in MMA. He has been a sparring partner of pound-for-pound great and Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward and, by Ward’s account, held his own in those sessions.

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Boxing is more than just punching, and Diaz embodies how the subtleties of the sweet science can be effectively applied to MMA. The southpaw’s game plays beautifully off his rangy, six-foot-tall frame and 76-inch reach, utilizing every iota of height and length to the fullest extent. A constant, punishing jab sets his preferred distance and his rhythm, and it gives him the space to move his feet and cut small, subtle angles. That effortless command of range and the space of the cage is the essence of boxing, far more than what a fighter is doing with his hands at any given moment.

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That active jab and subtle footwork made Diaz the kryptonite to the Irish superman in their March meeting, and will lay the foundation for a successful effort in their rematch at UFC 202. In this piece, we’ll explore the foundations of Diaz’s striking arsenal, and how he can use his crisp boxing repertoire to once again stymie McGregor in their second meeting on Saturday.

Let’s start with the jab. Diaz pumps his lead right hand constantly, but mixes up the timing and speed. Think about the jab like a musician setting a beat: pop, pop, pop, pop at a steady rate. This shows the opponent a certain pace and rhythm in addition to a particular distance. In Diaz’s case, this is a fast pace, a quick rhythm and a long range. Here’s an example from Diaz’s Dec. 2015 matchup with Michael Johnson:

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Diaz flicks his lead hand out in a half-speed jab. He isn’t trying to land this punch, just to gauge the distance and see how Johnson will respond. By tossing that throwaway shot out there, Diaz knows exactly how far away Johnson is and how far he’ll need to step in on the follow-up.

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With that information in mind, Diaz follows the probing, half-speed shot with a lightning-fast jab-cross. Like a pitcher following a change-up with a fastball, the second shot looks much faster by comparison than it actually is.

Johnson tries to counter after Diaz’s snapping cross slams into his head, but he’s stuck on the end of Diaz’s jab. Diaz accentuates his length by taking a small step backward after he lands the cross, forcing Johnson to come forward again if he wants to land.

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Check out another instance:

Johnson is attempting to pressure Diaz, edging his way into a range where he can actually land punches on his taller, longer opponent. In order to reestablish long range, Diaz fires off another short jab. As he does so, Diaz takes a small step to the outside.

A half-beat later, Diaz fires off another jab, again taking a tiny step into Johnson’s left hand. This time, Diaz follows with a snapping left hand. Johnson’s right-hook counter falls short, and with Johnson momentarily stunned, Diaz steps back. He now has the longer distance that Johnson was trying to shrink at the beginning of the sequence.

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The combination of the short, efficient outside steps and the flashing jab both drew Johnson’s eyes away from Diaz’s left and created a blind angle: Johnson couldn’t see the punch coming.

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Here’s one more example from the Johnson fight:

The two fighters begin at long range. Diaz steps forward, flashing his lead hand as if he’ll throw the jab. Johnson’s eyes follow Diaz’s right hand, and he never really registers that Diaz’s left hand is coming behind it.

In three GIFs, we’ve seen four different variations on the jab. In the first, Diaz flashed a half-speed range-finder and followed with a sharp, full-speed jab at full extension. In the second, he threw a shorter, somewhat slower jab to the chin and then followed with the full-speed variation. In the last, he only flashed a feint with the lead hand in order to distract from the cross.

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Note the combination of the punches with movement. In every case, Diaz uses the brief space after landing a punch to get himself out of the way and back to the distance at which he’s most comfortable.

When his opponent pressures, that combination keeps Diaz safe. Check out this sequence from his fight with McGregor:

The Irishman attempts to push forward, tossing out a right hook and then following with a left hand. Both punches fall well short, and Diaz replies with a slapping right hook over the top of McGregor’s left. Diaz can feel the fence looming behind him, and he circles out to his right side. As he does so, McGregor grazes his midsection with another left hand.

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While McGregor presses forward, Diaz backpedals. The one punch that McGregor lands in the sequence hits Diaz at the very end of its path, without much in the way of power behind it.

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The right hook helps to cover Diaz’s backward and lateral movement. Notice how short and efficient each of his steps is, in contrast to the leaping forward steps McGregor is forced to use to cover the distance.

These are the technical foundations of Diaz’s game: set a long distance with the jab, crack with the cross, use the counter right hook to cover the retreat, and combine tight, efficient footwork with all of those tools to maintain the distance and stay away from the fence.

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Two things on top of this basic infrastructure make Diaz truly special: pace and swagger.

It’s not so much that Diaz sticks his opponent on the outside and cracks him with those snapping punches, it’s the unholy rate at which he does it. Jab-cross follows jab-cross with ridiculous rapidity. When Diaz stung McGregor with that jab-cross at the midpoint of the second round, for example, he threw 30 punches in the subsequent 30 seconds. McGregor never recovered from that seemingly endless flurry.

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This kind of volume puts a tremendous amount of mental pressure on his opponent, and so too does Diaz’s trademark taunting. He draws opponents into swinging wildly beyond the range where they can hurt him, forcing them into burning energy by fighting at an unsustainable pace that doesn’t suit them. Even tough, disciplined fighters can fall into this trap.

Let’s take a look at how all these elements — the jab, the footwork, the volume, and the swagger — come together into a coherent package with an example from his fight with Michael Johnson:

Diaz laces Johnson with a hard jab-cross, then immediately pulls his head back and takes a tiny step backward to avoid Johnson’s right-hook counter. Diaz then points and smiles, following Johnson as he retreats. The Stockton native feints the jab, then fires off another hard jab-cross and taunts Johnson again.

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At the end of the sequence, note how far away Johnson is: He’s stuck on the end of Diaz’s reach, ensuring that he’s more likely to eat Diaz’s punches than the other way around.

So what does all of this mean for the rematch with Conor McGregor at UFC 202?

To win the fight, Diaz just needs to be himself. That might sound like a cop-out, but Diaz doesn’t need a complex game plan or to fight against his normal tendencies; instead, he needs to embrace them to the fullest.

McGregor too is a southpaw, but Diaz’s lead hand – his jabs and hooks – are far more natural and developed than the Irishman’s, and combined with his substantial height and reach advantage, he can stick McGregor on the outside and avoid the worst of his potent left hand.

As Diaz showed in the first fight, his footwork and command of those small, subtle movements is sharp enough to stay off the fence and largely negate McGregor’s pressure. If the Irishman can’t stick him against the cage and take away the space Diaz needs to enforce his reach advantage, it becomes a fight in the middle of the cage where McGregor is constantly trying to cover a long distance. Moreover, McGregor will have to consistently land the big shot against a fighter who can take his best punch and match his pace.

Stylistic matchups are strange like that. Diaz’s length, command of boxing fundamentals, pace, and durability make him a uniquely difficult challenge for McGregor, while even a striker as dangerous and skilled as the Irishman is a comparatively straightforward problem for Diaz to solve.

At UFC 202, we’ll see whether Diaz can replicate the magic that led him to one of the biggest upsets of the year in one of its most entertaining fights.

Patrick Wyman is a mixed martial arts scout who’s earned his PhD. He hosts the Heavy Hands Podcast and contributes analysis to The Post.