Friday night's matchup between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Sacramento Kings produced one of the most fascinating games we've seen in quite a while. The double-overtime thriller resulted in the Kings escaping with a 176-175 win. To add even more intrigue to the narrative is the fact that Russell Westbrook made his highly-anticipated debut for the Clippers in what turned out to be quite a performance for the former league MVP.

After the game, Clippers superstar Kawhi Leonard spoke out about the arrival of his new teammate. Kawhi shared his powerful message for Russ now that they're on the same team:

“Once he got here, I just told him to be himself, have fun out there, and that I just believe in him, trying to give him confidence and letting him know that we’re happy to have him,” Leonard said, via Clippers beat reporter Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints.

Russell Westbrook took a rather contentious path heading to the Clippers. His stint with the Los Angeles Lakers finally came to an end a few weeks back after the team decided to finally pull the plug on the botched experiment. Westbrook got traded to the Utah Jazz where he secured a contract buyout in order to hit free agency. It didn't take long before Russ ended up back in LA.

Westbrook balled out in his Clippers debut, logging a 17-point, 14-assist double-double in 39 minutes of action. He got the starting nod from coach Ty Lue too, and it looks like this is going to be the case for him the rest of the way.