PLAYA VISTA, CA – The Los Angeles Clippers are hoping to have Kawhi Leonard and Paul George for at least one of their upcoming two-game road trip. The injury update on the star duo is that they'll travel on the two-game trip, but will be listed as ‘Questionable.' The team will face the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves in a back-to-back set, but it's unlikely they'll have Leonard and George available for both of those games.
Leonard and George were partial participants in Wednesday's practice.
“I'm not sure about PG and Kawhi's [participation], but we're just gonna continue to clean up some things defensively,” head coach Tyronn Lue said. “Our rotations, with our blitzes and with our fires and then offensively, just understanding how we want to play, continue to work on our small lineup basketball and get better with that.”
Paul George tweaked his hamstring in the Clippers‘ loss to the Miami Heat on Monday night. Kawhi Leonard did not play due to a non-Covid illness.
The Clippers are coming off three losses in a row to the Boston Celtics, Indiana Pacers, and Miami Heat. The latter came at home, and each loss featured tough second unit rotations that struggled, specifically in second quarters. John Wall, Luke Kennard, and Norman Powell lineups are a -32 in 99 minutes together on the court this season.
There is a plan in place, however, to split the trio up and continue to find better combinations when Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are available.
“That’s my job to help those guys out in every way I can,” Lue added. “It’s tough when you have three of the guys coming off the bench and you’re trying to stagger them as best as possible, but three really good players. It’s just the combinations of those three guy defensively has hurt us. Not their fault at all. I take full responsibility for that and just something we gotta continue to keep looking at and find different ways to try to split those guys up because we need all three of those guys.
“It’s just the hardest part is with PG and Kawhi, they’ve only played 14 games together and so until we finally get a chance to see our whole team and continue to have sample sizes of different lineups, it’s gonna be tough. I don’t fault those guys at all. They’re giving us everything they have. My job is to make sure that we put them in better positions to be successful.”
Through the first 39 games, the Clippers are 9-5 in the 14 games Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have played together. They've only played four games with everyone available, none of which have been consecutive, and two of which saw Kawhi Leonard come off the bench.
“It's gonna take a little time. We understand that and with Kawhi only playing 463 minutes this year, it is gonna be tough until we get guys, coming along, and getting healthy and he has been doing a good job of playing more minutes, but now just got to keep guys healthy. So once we get him there, we can post him more in that small lineup. And when we have Marcus, Nico, PG, Kawhi and that small lineup, it looks a lot different than we do when we have the three small guards.”
The end of the upcoming two-game road trip will mark the halfway point of the season for the Clippers. With a 21-18 record, the Clippers sit just four games back of the first seed Denver Nuggets and just three games ahead of the 11th seed Minnesota Timberwolves, both of whom they'll see on this trip.
In 29 appearances this season, Paul George has averaged 24.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 1.6 steals per game on 45.7 percent shooting from the field and 38.9 percent shooting from three.
Since returning from his ankle sprain on December 5th, Kawhi Leonard is averaging 20.6 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 4.12 assists on 49.1 percent shooting from the field.
The Clippers should release another injury update on Wednesday night with the official report. The game-time injury update will likely be released during Tyronn Lue's pre-game press conference on Thursday night.
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