The man behind the San Antonio Spurs' terrific shooting

MIAMI — "The Shot Doctor," as some have deemed him, was drawing more attention than normal Wednesday.

Chip Engelland, the San Antonio Spurs assistant coach who has been working wonders with NBA players' jump shots since the late 1990s, found himself holding court with a half-dozen reporters at the NBA Finals off-day session at American Airlines Arena. There was no better source to go to for answers, what with the Spurs having set Finals records for first-quarter shooting (86.7%) and first-half shooting (75.8%) in their Game 3 win against the Miami Heat that gave them a 2-1 series lead.

Engelland, who came to the Spurs from the Denver Nuggets in 2005, has been the go-to guy on this front for quite some time.

The San Antonio roster is full of players whose shots miraculously improved once they were under his care — from Tony Parker to Patty Mills to Kawhi Leonard, the Game 3 star who made 10 of 13 shots for 29 points. They all swear by the man with the salt-and-pepper hair who used to captain Mike Krzyzewski's Duke teams, the 53-year-old who has such a special way of persuading the most stubborn of athletes to trust in his ways.

Yet Leonard's development is the one most germane to the here and now, as the Spurs' quest to avenge their loss in the 2013 Finals might well have been lost if not for his breakout game. It was his three first-quarter three-pointers that helped spark the Spurs, but it was years worth of work and relationship building with Engelland that truly helped it happen.

"He has a great feel and understanding of what makes players tick and how to deal with them — especially Kawhi," Leonard's agent, Brian Elfus of Impact Sports, said of Engelland. "I just think it's one of those innate things he has, an ability to connect and get the most out of a guy."

Elfus would know.

When Leonard was drafted 15th overall by the Indiana Pacers out of San Diego State in 2011 and immediately traded to the Spurs, there were only three days left for him to meet his new bosses. The NBA lockout was coming quickly that year, meaning players and coaches would have to part ways until there was resolution, so Leonard headed straight for San Antonio with Elfus and spent the little time he had left listening to the charismatic coach with the impressive track record.

Engelland asked for permission to change Leonard's shot, to perform a "tune-up," as he called it, on the player who shot 43.5% overall and 27.5% from three-point range in his final collegiate season but hit 52.2% of his shots overall and 37.5% of his threes this season.

"We had worked with Richard Jefferson in San Antonio before, and we felt that there were some similarities," said Engelland, who also is renowned for his work with the likes of retired Grant Hill (while a shooting consultant for the Detroit Pistons) and the Heat's Shane Battier, both fellow Duke alumni. "So I had some pictures of Richard, and I had pictures of Kawhi, and showed them the difference and the similarities. Richard made a great adjustment, had some nice shooting years — Richard was 29 at the time.

"(Leonard) had respect for Richard's game (and said), 'Oh, Richard did that; I think I could do that.' With Kawhi it wasn't a makeover, it was more of a tune-up, changing the release point. He shot pretty far back behind his head, but he had good grip and he had some nice tools."

Leonard — who averaged a career-high 12.8 points a game during the regular season but had never scored more than 26 points in an NBA preseason, regular-season or playoff game — was different from the rest of Engelland's pet projects. He is painfully quiet, a 22-year-old whose father was murdered in 2008 and who is extremely discerning about who he trusts. But Engelland planted a seed that sparked Leonard's summer workout plan, and the evolution had officially begun.

"It was kind of remarkable if you look back at it," Elfus said. "(Engelland) ingrained something in (Leonard's) head. The kid was shooting one way for his whole life, and then he changed it in that short period of time. Kawhi went back to San Diego and perfected it, really came back and was ready for training camp after the lockout.

"Watching him in San Diego, twice a day every day, taking hundreds of jump shots, made me realize that he bought in to it. He bought into it for sure. And then when he came back to San Antonio after the lockout, the coaching staff was really happy with his progress and where he was with his jump shot."

Their offseason training sessions have continued. For each of the past two summers, general manager R.C. Buford and coach Gregg Popovich have dispatched Engelland and fellow assistant coach Chad Forcier to spend two weeks training with Leonard in his hometown. The fine-tuning continues.

"I came in during the lockout year, so I really didn't know my teammates well or the head coach, so I was learning on the fly in games," Leonard said Wednesday. "I didn't really know the players until about the end of the year. So just trying to find my spots on the floor and see ... where I could fit in or where I could be aggressive at."

With Engelland's help at every shot along the way.