The Los Angeles Clippers finally got their star duo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, along with sharpshooter Luke Kennard, back on Monday night. The organization has been waiting to run out a healthy team since the opening weekend of the NBA season, and now they're nearly here.

Led by both George and Leonard, the Clippers defeated the Charlotte Hornets in the first game of a four-game road trip, 119-117. Paul George finished with a team-high 19 points to go along with three rebounds and seven assists. John Wall came off the Clippers bench to pour in 12 points, 12 assists, and five rebounds in 27 minutes of play. Kawhi Leonard added 16 points and six rebounds, including the game-winning shot with 1.4 seconds remaining.

“It was huge,” head coach Tyronn Lue said of Kawhi Leonard's game winner. “A great momentum builder for him going forward and just happy to see those guys back on the floor. Thought PG did a great job, especially in that first half of scoring the basketball and distributing the ball and getting guys easy shots – had seven assists and no turnovers in the first half – and then having 31 assists.

“With those guys on the floor, like I said, it’s going to cause teams to double team, teams to do some things they’re not used to doing and we’re going to get open shots. 36 threes for us is huge because we’ve been wanting to shoot more threes and so just continue to keep building off this. For that first unit we’ve just got to play a little bit faster, play a little faster in the half-court offense, getting to our spots, harder cuts, sharper cuts, then playing a little faster in transition as well. But overall, I thought it was a good job. First game back, I thought we did a good job.”

On the final offensive possession of the game, Paul George made sure to direct traffic and get Kawhi Leonard the ball in his spot at free throw line extended area. From there, Leonard took a one-dribble, pull-up going left and drilled the jumper over Jalen McDaniels.

“I think we're seeing him more and more get to his spots,” George said of Leonard. “We're seeing him get comfortable. We're seeing him be more aggressive as the games go on. He looked like himself. He took the shots that the defense gave him, and his playmaking is always special with his ability to get to the paint and use his body.

“Watching him, it's him just getting back to home for him. You know, this is his happy place, his home right here. So we're gonna continue to support him around him, and again it just comes down to everybody now being in their roles and, you know, shining within that.”

Norman Powell is the only current Clippers player out due to injury. He suffered a groin strain against the Portland Trail Blazers last week, but the team is optimistic the injury won't hold him out for too long.

On numerous occasions the last few weeks, Tyronn Lue and Clippers players have insisted there's very little to take away from the first month-and-a-half of the season due to the mounting injuries. Kawhi Leonard just played his sixth game of the season, two of which saw him off the bench in what a disgusted Lue called, ‘nasty.'

They still have ample time to put together a good stretch of games, but the clock is ticking.

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“At the end of the day, we just want to be playing great at the right time,” George explained. “So not necessarily any urgency on it. We're a team that's — we should be winning games. We should be one of the better teams when the season ends. But in the big picture, we just want to be playing well at the right time. As long as we're learning on the fly, as long as we're learning each game, how to get better, how to prepare, how to win, how to finish, how to dominate, that's what matters. Again, we'll be one of those teams that's playing at the end. We just have to start forming and picking up as the season goes along.”

The good news is only 30 percent of the season (25 games) has gone by. A whopping 57 games still remain in this regular season, which should be enough time for this team to find a rhythm and learn to play with one another again. Assuming, of course, they can stay healthy.

“No matter who is on the floor, we're going to compete,” Tyronn Lue said. “If we play hard, I think we got a chance to win every game. It’s hard to really assess our team because our guys have been out for so long, but this next stretch of 20-25 games is gonna be very important to us and for us to see who we are on both sides of the basketball. With the injuries all year, we really haven't had a chance to see our whole team. We've had a very, very small sample size. Tonight's the start of something new. Hopefully these next 25 games, we can start establishing who we are and who we want to be.”

Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and the LA Clippers head to Orlando next, where they'll take on the Magic and Miami Heat on a back-to-back set. Expect Leonard and John Wall to sit out one of the Florida games as the team continues to bring them back from long layoffs slowly.