Kawhi Leonard is not going to play in Game 3 of the Los Angeles Clippers’ first-round collection vs. the Phoenix Suns on Thursday evening attributable to a knee sprain, the group introduced. Leonard initially suffered the harm in Game 1 and is anticipated to be day-to-day forward of Game 4, in accordance with Adrian Wojnarowski.
Clippers president Lawrence Frank informed reporters Leonard is “extraordinarily dissatisfied” that he will not be capable of swimsuit up for Game 3, however would not go into additional element in regards to the severity of his harm.
It stays unclear precisely when Leonard aggravated his knee, as he by no means went to the locker room and performed over 80 mixed minutes in Games 1 and a pair of. Clippers beat author Law Murray prompt this play from the third quarter of Game 1, which was just like the sequence the place Leonard tore his ACL within the 2021 playoffs. But, once more, that’s only a guess.
Leonard sat out of the whole 2021-22 season to rehab his knee and had been load managing all of it season lengthy. He missed 20 of the Clippers’ first 27 video games and the one time he performed greater than 5 consecutive video games was when he performed six in a row on both aspect of the All-Star break.
The plan gave the impression to be working to perfection. Leonard was terrific within the common season when he did play, averaging 23.8 factors, 6.5 rebounds and three.9 assists on 51.2/41.6/87.1 taking pictures splits. That development continued within the first two video games of this collection, as Leonard put up a mixed 69 factors, 13 rebounds, 12 assists and 4 steals on 24-of-44 from the sphere to assist the Clippers steal home-court benefit.
This new harm is unrelated to the torn ACL, per Wojnarowski, although they did each occur in his proper knee.
Heading into this collection, the Clippers had been already with out Paul George, who sprained his knee throughout a March 21 recreation towards the Oklahoma City Thunder. While he’s on the comeback path and has restarted on-court actions, he isn’t anticipated to play within the first spherical, in accordance with Wojnarowski.
George’s absence made the Clippers sizeable underdogs towards the high-powered Suns led by Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, however after incomes a cut up in Phoenix the Clippers had some hope. That has now been considerably drained by the Leonard information. It’s practically inconceivable to see how the Clippers win Game 3 with out both of their stars, and there is no assure that Leonard shall be accessible for Game 4 and past. Even if he does play, he possible will not be at 100%.
There’s nonetheless a protracted strategy to go within the collection, however as soon as once more the Clippers have been dealt some critical unhealthy luck within the playoffs.
