Los Angeles-Thursday night was the type of scene with which the Los Angeles clippers have dreamed for almost a decade: an strident and exhausted crowd in victories after the first victory in the playoffs in their own sand.
After taking a 2-1 rotation in his first round series against Denver, the clippers are the NBA championship contender that nobody predicted.
And it has been possible thanks to the Renaissance race that few saw coming.
In recent weeks, Kawhi Leonard has looked at all the elite scorer and the perimeter defender that the clippers thought they were getting in 2019 when Leonard, Weeks, eliminated the honor of the MVP of his career from the NBA finals, signed with the clippers in a free agency’s blow.
However, that was six years ago, a lifetime in a league where championship windows open rapidly and close quickly.
“The best thing for him was to take the summer free and do well,” said an executive of a rival team. “I can’t believe how thin it looks. It seems that it is much clearer and moves much better and playing the way it was before. It is incredible.”
Leonard has seemed dominant in the postseason before, while in a clippers uniform, from 2021. But during a second round series against Utah, just when Leonard and Paul George were playing their best as possible as teammates, Leonard took a great success of Joe English from Utah in a fast break and lost the rest of that season, and the whole season 2021-22 knee, with a knee wound.
The clippers playoffs extend in 2023 and 2024 also ended up with a injured Leonard: a series of strains, inflammation and partial tears and complete to the knee ligaments that left other teams so scared by their ability to remain on the court that in 2023, the executives around the NBA described their commercial value as Zilch.
Upon entering this season, his premature finals to past campaigns, along with George’s departure in the free agency, reduced his team’s championship expectations. The probabilities put the clippers surpassed by the victories in 35.5 victories. Leonard did not even make his debut in the season until the beginning of January, when half of the season ended.
However, the clippers finished with 50 victories anyway, after winning 18 of their last 21 games. And Leonard averaged 25.7 points in 52% shots, including 42% in triples, in their last 19 games.
His injury history has led fans, explorers and league executives to continue containing their breath while waiting to see how long Leonard can remain healthy while playing heavy minutes.
“If you’ve seen Kawhi enough, you know what is possible,” said Oscar Phil Lord, a clipper fan for a long time. “He made it possible. His elite work ethics has once again led the elite game. But I never want to see Joe English anywhere near him again.”
However, for now, Leonard has produced emphatic momoff moments, such as his 39 points, while only four shots are missing in a 2 -game victory for even the series of clippers with Denver. In game 3, he scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
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“For this, Kawhi lives,” said the clippers coach Tyronn Lue, this week. “And we know that if we have a healthy kawhi, we can win any series.”
Leonard himself could have predicted this. After returning from a knee injury after the 2023 season, he routinely described his recovery as a two -year schedule that he was not looking to hurry “jumping steps.”
“Anyone in the business he is playing knows how difficult it is to return from an injury or play in the NBA. They understand what we all happen and what I happened,” Leonard said after the victory.
As Beat reporter who covered Leonard Daily during his first five seasons in Los Angeles, I have never been close to a more routine player. Each warming prior to the game was carried out at the same speed, with the same repetitions and exercises, against the same assistant coaches. However, the irony that complicated his team’s championship ambitions was that it was never predictable if Leonard would be on the court.
He had even caused criticism of Leonard’s desire to play. But Clint Parks, a skill coach who worked with Leonard when he was a teenager and early during his NBA career, said that could not be further from the motivation that has allowed Leonard to go from a university recruit overlooked and an NBA player at the beginning of his career in an option No. 1 for a title team.
“His self -confidence of day 1 has always been one. “He has always had this work ethic. He has always been concentrated. He has always been an entrepreneur. At age 14, he said he wanted to be one of the best to play basketball. That was his thing.”
“Over the years, he has pushed towards that, and that is exactly what has become, regardless of injuries. People always talk about:” Oh, it could be the top 10 if it was not lost all that time and was not injured. “Shoot, if he can finish the job and somehow bring home a championship to the clippers, he will still be in the first 10 of all time with all the injuries and all the time.
Each of the last two seasons, Leonard had produced stretching that looked like a return to the form that made him a defensive player of the year six times to the All-Star, twice and a member of the NBA team of the 75 players of all time. However, in 2023, after a dominant start for a first -round playoff series against Phoenix, Leonard suffered a knee injury that ended the season. And last year, after the clippers seemed to be the best NBA team for a two -month stretch, he left the playoffs once again in a defeat against Dallas.
The feeling around the league a year ago, said the rival executive, “it was like, ‘uh-oh, here we go again'”.
Playing under a carefully monitored increase in his workload, he took Leonard a month after his debut in the season to create 30 minutes for the first time. A month later, in March, the 40 -minute mark passed. And in the playoffs, most of the expectations on how this 33 -year -old superstar could still work.
“It seems to look like the best player in the world,” Parks said.
