Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard made his return to the court on Saturday night against the Atlanta Hawks. Leonard had missed the first part of the NBA season while recovering from a severe knee injury that lingered for him.
Leonard has seen multiple injuries take hold of his career of late but he has battled back the best he can. The star was on a minutes restriction in the game and saw 19 minutes of game action, scoring 12 points in his return.
After the fact, Leonard dropped an interesting quote to reflect on his return to the court. Leonard has always had a way with words and continued it on Saturday.
“It felt great… was able to throw some paint on the canvas tonight… we’re working to create something beautiful so let’s keep going.”
It felt great… was able to throw some paint on the canvas tonight… we’re working to create something beautiful so let’s keep going.”
– Kawhi (12 PTS, 19 MIN) on his return to action pic.twitter.com/dh7oMafgGJ
— NBA (@NBA) January 5, 2025
It was a good debut for Leonard and Los Angeles got the blowout win. The Clippers tried to ease him into the gameplan, something that Leonard even mentioned after the game.
“I took the shots that I got,” Leonard said afterwards “We’re still easing me into the game. We’re on nobody’s, I guess, timetable. Anybody watching, that wants me to score 20 or 30 points or be aggressive, we are not on no one’s time frame. We know what’s ahead of us, and we have to keep building in the right direction. So, we facing it like it was a preseason game tonight. And we’ll keep moving the same way until I’m able to build up my minutes.”
With Leonard now back in the lineup, the Clippers can fully evaluate themselves compared to the rest of the teams in the Western Conference. Without Leonard in the lineup, Los Angeles has held their own and kept themselves afloat.
Currently, the Clippers hold a record of 20-15, sitting in seventh place in the West standings. Leonard should help them climb even higher and they are a team to be feared now.
“It was nothing hard about playing tonight,” Leonard says.”We did the right steps to get me to this point. Playing basketball is the easy part of it. This is what I love to do. The hard part is not playing, and having to rehab and not competing with my teammates.”
But their leader is back and things seem to be clicking into place for this Clippers team. After a long recovery process, the Clippers star is back and basketball makes sense again.
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