The San Antonio Spurs have found a Sunday habit"”sending a message across the league that despite a slow start to the season, they will be a force to reckon come playoff time.

After giving the Eastern Conference-leading Atlanta Hawks a beat down on the road on March 22, and outclassing Western Conference contender Memphis Grizzlies on March 29, the suddenly explosive Spurs gave the league's best team their worst loss of the season Sunday with a 107-92 whooping that really wasn't as close as the final score suggests.

Last year's Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard continued his return to peak form leading the way with a regular-season career high-tying 26 points on 11-17 shooting in just 24 minutes. It was Leonard's 12th 20-point game in his last 19 games, but it was on the other end of the court, as Ball Don't Lie points out, where the 23-year-old particularly impressed.

Leonard held Harrison Barnes to just four points on 2-7 shooting before switching over to defend MVP candidate Steph Curry. The basketball wizard exploded for 13 points, making all five of his shots during a two minute stretch, which cut the Spurs lead to 14. After a timeout, Leonard took to defending Curry. He did not score the rest of the quarter.

"Kawhi was phenomenal. He was the best player on the floor," said Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

But the Spurs' re-emergence as a legit contender isn't limited to the rise of Leonard. The defending champions have been consistently displaying the kind of clinical ball movement that shellacked the Miami Heat in last year's finals. When they beat the Hawks two weeks ago, they had 30 assists with 11 "hockey assists" on 46 made field goals.

The Spurs now find themselves at sixth place in the West, just a half game behind the Los Angeles Clippers, and one game behind the fourth place Portland Trail Blazers with five games left in the regular season.