SAN ANTONIO -- Kawhi Leonard is confounding, not just for the Golden State Warriors but for people who try to classify and rank what he does. He's a Finals MVP who has never made an All-Star team. He has pedestrian-seeming stat averages (16.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.6 assists), but a massive impact on the game, according to real plus minus. It's not crazy to suggest he's something short of a star and it's not crazy to suggest he's a top-10 player.

Count me in the later camp, though. If we accept that defense is half the game, Kawhi Leonard is indeed a superstar. Kawhi is famously taciturn and his silence is a terrifying, contagious disease. The man he guards tends to go quiet. On Sunday night, he hit the mute button on Harrison Barnes, who scored a mere four points.

Leonard certainly looked like a superstar against the Warriors on Sunday night, crushing their offensive plans (seven steals) while delivering a sterling offensive performance (26 points on 11-of-17 shooting).

Kawhi Leonard's versatility on defense makes him a big challenge for the Warriors if they meet in the playoffs. Soobum Im/USA TODAY Sports

"He was phenomenal. He was the best player on the floor," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after the game. No reasonable person who watched would disagree -- though someone might point out that Danny Green provided 18 points on 10 shots, three blocks, and a smothering defensive performance on Klay Thompson (six points).

The Spurs are now the first team this season to beat Golden State twice. They've presented the first real, concerning challenge to the Warriors in this charmed season and perhaps a tricky playoff riddle to solve in the form of their small forward.

Saturday in Dallas, when asked if he cares whether the Spurs are in Golden State's second-round playoff path, Kerr smiled and quipped, "I want them in the East." Who can blame him? Nobody wants to play these guys, no matter their seed. It's not just the Spurs' championship pedigree that scares, but also how they've performed of late. San Antonio is rounding into form and that's not just a Boris Diaw joke.

The Warriors got knocked off their feet in the first quarter, but were in the process of eroding the lead in the third quarter, thanks to a majestic stretch from Curry where he scored 13 points in under two minutes. Then Gregg Popovich put Leonard on Curry, thus gumming up Golden State's offense. If the Spurs are to meet the Warriors this postseason, watch for this matchup. Leonard makes life tougher on Curry, but Golden State's supporting players could theoretically take advantage of being free of Kawhi's clutches. On Sunday, they did not.

After the game, Curry emphasized that Golden State's offense should succeed when Leonard is guarding him, provided they execute properly.

"We can run our same offense and try and look for mismatches that might be somewhere else on the floor," Curry said. "He's a great defender, but when we run our offense, we feel like there's nobody that can really take us out of that."

When asked if Golden State had plans for the Kawhi-on-Steph scenario, Kerr foreshadowed, "There will be. That's one of the things that happens in the playoffs."

That's in the distant, hypothetical future, though. A Warriors-Spurs playoff showdown feels inevitable, but it's far from assured. If it happens, we can reasonably surmise the Spurs are the best equipped squad to beat the upstart Warriors. That's especially true if Leonard continues to grow into greatness.