Kawhi Leonard doesn’t give away much, if anything, of how he is feeling. He’s stoic, unflinching, unsmiling and unemotional throughout the regular season, win or lose. But when the postseason rolls around, the Clippers forward isn’t shy about letting his inner Kawhi show.

It’s known as “Playoff Kawhi”, a tougher, more focused version of No. 2, the player who has helped two teams win NBA titles and led the Clippers deep into the 2021 playoffs. That persona will be on display when the Clippers (44-368) open their first-round series at the Phoenix Suns (45-37) on Sunday.

But in typical Leonard fashion, the Clippers small forward played down any change in his postseason behavior, saying it’s just his game face.

“I mean, it’s (me) just trying to win a game,” he said, never cracking a hint of a smile. “Things get more magnified (in the postseason) I guess, and people start to pay more attention to what’s really going on. Yeah, it’s (me) just trying to win a basketball game really. Whatever the outcome is, it’s just trying to put full effort in.”

All that stored-up effort led to an NBA championship with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014, when he was named NBA Finals MVP. Then, in 2019, he led the Toronto Raptors to their first NBA title and won his second Finals MVP award – joining LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players to win that honor with different teams.

Whether he can produce similar results with the Clippers remains to be seen. He led the team to the 2021 Western Conference semifinals against the Utah Jazz before tearing his anterior cruciate ligament that later required surgery and a yearlong recovery.

Last season, without Leonard, the Clippers failed to get out of the Play-In Tournament. But had they advanced to the Finals, you could have bet that “Playoff Kawhi” would have shown up.

“I mean, it’s all woulda, coulda, shoulda right? But yeah, if they would have made it to The Finals last year, you would have seen me playing,” Leonard said in a rare light moment.

Whatever Leonard wants to call this subtle transformation, teammates and coaches have seen it up close. Guard Norman Powell had a front-row seat as a member of the Raptors when Leonard channeled his inner motivation to beat six-time NBA champions Golden State to win the franchise’s first NBA title.

Powell said Leonard knows what these games mean and gets locked in.

“I feel like y’all have seen, y’all have seen a glimpse of how Kawhi is in the postseason,” Powell said. “Just his whole mentality, his approach, just being locked in, start to finish, you know, the aggressiveness, the calmness, just the pace, the flow, the game.

“I feel like he has all of that clicking in the playoffs, so I’m excited to see it again up close and in person.”

Terance Mann also saw Leonard’s laser focus two years ago in the Clippers’ run to the 2021 conference semifinals. He said he can’t wait to see that again this postseason. “I’m especially excited because I feel he’s gotten better,” Mann said.

Bones Hyland might have been too young to remember Leonard’s previous playoff runs, but with YouTube, he has been able to watch the star “turn it up another notch.” The second-year player also has seen a preview this season after joining the Clippers in February.

“He’s been turning it up another notch in the last half of the season since All-Star break,” Hyland said. “He’s been taking it to another level. Just getting comfortable out there, and you’ll see he’s got like three points, and you look back up and it’s 27, so he’s just ramping it up. ‘Playoff Kawhi’ is definitely different for sure. I’ve seen it.”

Getting back to his “Playoff Kawhi” form didn’t come easy or quickly. Recovery time for a torn ACL can be a two-year process and the Clippers took their time in bringing their star back, often restricting his minutes or even sitting him for one game of a back-to-back. Although eager to get back to the court, Leonard knew enough not to rush things during an 82-game season.

“(It was) knowing that it’s going to be a long season, and just staying focused and just getting stronger throughout the year and just making sure that I know it’s a goal set and a plan set to get through the season healthy,” he said. “That was my main focus this year, just trying to get through the season healthy, and I’ll see where my game play goes after that.”

During training camp, he said he was rusty, but his legs felt strong. The hard part would be getting back his rhythm, footwork and timing after being off the court for 16 months. “I know it’s a process,” he said in September.

Leonard’s patience and slow recovery effort began to show early on this season. In his first regular-season game, he came off the bench and had 14 points, seven rebounds and two assists in 21 minutes against the Lakers.

Knee soreness put Leonard back on the bench for three weeks and an ankle sprain suffered Nov. 21 sidelined him for five games. None of that derailed his mission, though. On December 5, he hit the game-winner against the Charlotte Hornets.

A week later, Leonard posted 25 points on 10-of-12 shooting, had nine rebounds and six assists against the Boston Celtics. On a chilly January night in Los Angeles, Leonard heated up and scored 33 points on 9-of-12 shooting, 3-of-5 from three and 12-of-12 from the free throw line, along with nine rebounds, four assists and four steals, in a victory against the Dallas Mavericks.

Leonard’s posterizing dunk against the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 13 was the punctuation mark that let his teammates know the comeback was complete.

“We were playing here at home against Dever here and he dunked on someone on a set play, and we were like, ‘OK, now he’s back, he’s back for real,’” forward Nicolas Batum said.

By the end of the season, with Paul George out because of a sprained knee, it wasn’t unusual to see Leonard log heavy minutes, many times topping 40 minutes. And now, Leonard and the Clippers are back to where his comeback started – vying for a title.

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What does Leonard think of his season after returning from a devastating injury, the cautionary restrictions, the ankle sprain and now the playoffs?

“I think it was good, up and down. Had some setbacks with the knee and, you know, ended up going down with an ankle sprain,” he said in his classic no-frills monotone. “But yeah, trying to finish it off pretty strong.”

Clippers at Phoenix

What: Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference first-round series

When: 5 p.m. Sunday

Where: Footprint Center, Phoenix

TV: TNT