The Los Angeles Clippers have been reeling over the last few weeks and are now in danger of falling out of a top four spot in the Western Conference playoff race. Enter Russell Westbrook.
The Clippers are expected to get Russell Westbrook back from injury on Monday night when the team hosts Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers. The team released its injury report, which listed Westbrook as QUESTIONABLE.
Russell Westbrook has been upgraded to QUESTIONABLE for tonight’s game against the Pacers.
PJ Tucker is also questionable for the Clippers
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) March 25, 2024
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski first reported the news of Westbrook's imminent return to the Clippers lineup.
Westbrook suffered the fractured hand on March 1st, in a game against the Washington Wizards. During a defensive play in the second quarter, Russell Westbrook poked at the dribbling Jordan Poole and appeared to make contact with Poole's elbow or the ball awkwardly. HE immediately grabbed at his hand, flexing, stretching, and pulling the finger in an attempt to get rid of the discomfort.
Here’s the play where it appears that Russell Westbrook suffer his hand injury. He grabs at and flexes his hand multiple times immediately after trying to poke the ball out of Jordan Poole’s hands. https://t.co/we7FFBzDxX pic.twitter.com/vqgUTDt7px
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) March 2, 2024
Westbrook would go on to play a couple more possessions while still flexing that the hand before coming out of the game for good Westbrook underwent imaging at halftime, which revealed the fracture in his left hand.
The nine-time NBA All-Star underwent surgery three days later on March 4th and has been around the team since. It's unclear how much he's done as far as basketball activities, but the team surely misses their vocal leader. Westbrook, who has missed the last 12 games for the Clippers due to the injury, played in all 58 games to start the season.
In those 12 absences, the Clipper have gone 6-6 while struggling to string together a good stretch of basketball.
“He's another guy that comes in with energy, playing and giving us a fast pace, playing in transition, another defender on the floor, and another scorer,” Clippers star Kawhi Leonard said of Russell Westbrook's absence. “So we definitely miss him. We played our first 50 games with him or 50-something games. So it’s a rhythm break.”
Over the last month, the Clippers have lost multiple games they should've won. That includes multiple 20-point leads against teams missing their star players and very lackluster performances against the Sixers and Hawks who were without Joel Embiid and Trae Young, respectively.
The same words have circulated throughout the team's postgame press conferences: Effort, physicality, and energy.
“It starts with us,” Paul George said after the loss against the Hawks. “We got to give a better effort. We got to have more intensity and play with just a little more pride. I think collectively we got to have a little bit more pride when we step out on that floor.”
Those are exactly what Westbrook brings right away.
Westbrook had been pretty healthy throughout his NBA career, and has played in at least 73 games in each of the last two seasons. Westbrook played 65 games in the COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 season and 57 games in the 2019-20 season.
Westbrook has played in 1,152 of a possible 1,251 regular season games throughout his career, including every single game of the first five seasons of his NBA career.
Clippers star Paul George on Russell Westbrook’s injury:
“Just be here for him. It’s a tough injury. He’s one of the most durable people we’ve had. To go along with his support system at home, we’ll be a support system here.” pic.twitter.com/Ldrq26sJF6
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) March 2, 2024
When the injury first happened, Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue expressed his frustrations for Westbrook, who has been an iron man throughout his NBA career.
“Just feel bad for Russ right now,” Lue said after the injury. “You never want to see a player get hurt. Poole drove around and he tried to deflected from the back. I think he hit his elbow with his hand, so we don't know what timetable, don't know if he needs surgery or anything yet, but he's out right now. So just trying to figure it out.
“He's going to stay engaged regardless. That's just who he is. And so we need him around, we need his energy, we need his talking the way he leads and so until he is able to get back, we're going to miss him.”
If Russell Westbrook is able to suit up tonight against the Indiana Pacers, it would be three weeks to the day that he underwent surgery on his fractured left hand.
In 58 games this season, Russell Westbrook has averaged 11.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1.1 steals per game on 45.2 percent shooting.
Tonight's contest between the LA Clippers and Indiana Pacers is set to tip off at 7:30PM PST.
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