RD 1 GAME #4: LAC [1-2] @ MAVS [2-1]—SUN 4/26 12:30 PM, ABC

[Clemenza]

Epic f*cking win! Yeah we gave up the 31 point lead but we didn't fold. PG was great in the first half and Harden was amazing in the final minutes. Hell of a three from PG too. Kyrie was a beast for the Mavs.. sheesh! We would've won game 2 as well had Kawhi sat that game out. Sit Kawhi for game 5, feed Zu, and let Harden and PG do their thing. Just like I expected, it looks the Golden Boy Luka is wearing down and running out of gas, maybe slightly injured too. Don't let up on him at all for the rest of this series. He might crack

[Captain Ballmer]

Still giving me goosebumps

Read on Twitter

This is the type of plays some young wings in college now will call him their goat. so freakin smooth.

[Sofia]

Look at Lukas’s D on that third shot.

Then look at his reaction on the 4th shot, when Harden beats Maxi off the dribble

[KL2]

Look at Lukas’s D on that third shot.

Then look at his reaction on the 4th shot, when Harden beats Maxi off the dribble

Here’s Kidd’s explanation for why Maxi was in there.

Read on Twitter

?

It must be dependent on how he recovers and how he moves. If he gradually starts looking much better, I’m sure he could be helpful. Just have to keep monitoring the situation

Here’s the thing though. Let’s say he’s all ready progressed. They’re not putting him in game 6 or 7 and messing with the team again. If they didn’t know how to utilize a rusty Leonard then they certainly wouldn’t in those situations.

I hate talking about next round when we’re not there yet. Same thing though. If he’s not ready to start that series they can’t afford the same thing happening again.

I have a feeling they’ve shut him down for good but not saying so.

[PeteyPablo]

I was with my family eating at BJ's in Arcadia watching the game. They were playing it on all TV's.

Great team win. Even with Kyrie going off and Luka triple double , Clippers pulled out the victory on the road.

James Harden really earning his contract right now. Paul George with a great game as well.

[nickhx2]

btw thinking on the whole kawhi thing for a little bit:

- I'm sure the entire team regrets letting him touch the floor, all things considered. who's to say that the team wouldn't be up 3-1 or potentially have swept the mavs by now? One thing that I think has been weirdly understated without being understated is that the team is looking good on defense again the way it was earlier in the season. It's odd because i think most everyone is going "oh wow look at zu/mann/westbrook making all these plays on D!!" - but i'm not hearing a whole lot of people going "wow, look at the collective and how they're looking as good as they did before ASB." And in a way that's pretty much all we really needed, with a master-tier distributor and scorer in harden and an elite scorer in PG - as in, we have the pieces we need to be strong playoff team, even without kawhi.

- But with kawhi back and kinda futzing all that up, all that stuff goes out the window. Really early on, when things were really tough, i was looking at some of justin russo's analysis and in a couple of our "how the ******* did we lose this game? where was the D????" losses, he pointed out the lack of urgency and movement on defense, and i was kinda shocked to see that kawhi was not just a culprit, but he was a MAJOR culprit. But it made sense after going over it, and it also helped to disabuse me of a notion that i sometimes have in that kawhi is infallible on that end - and i assume many others are like me, too.

And so when he's not really his usual self, he looks like sludge, the rest of the team looks like sludge, and nobody really wants to admit it because of who he is and because they all know that when he is turned up to 10/10 that he is as indomitable a force in the playoffs as you will see. But those two games he played for us, sludge was the on-court and end of game result.

- So noting that, i do think while ty lue can sometimes stick with a thing a bit too long (and i understand why, sometimes you need sample size to see if your strategy is a valid one), it sounds like the team/org/coaches/whatever have made a collective choice to keep kawhi out, and i'm very much thinking they feel confident, based off the 4 games we've seen so far, that the team has what it needs to close out the series.

now, in regards to kawhi's injury itself:

- I think it's fairly clear why the team had been as vague and obscure as it had been leading up until this point. This is a thing that isn't going away so easily, and the times they listed him as questionable, he really WAS questionable. Though that said, there's obvious competitive advantage in delaying knowledge right until tip off.

- Injuries like these thread a delicate and complex line through several factors: pain tolerance, psychological caution around the injury, and actual mechanical movement and function. It might be he has no pain but he's afraid to really go all-out because he's literally had to go through so many injuries before and that kind of psychological trauma of screwing something up (again) is preventing him from doing so. Or there might be scary pain that, when he cuts or jumps is like "uh, that doesn't feel right, so i better not do anything too hard." Or it could be his knee just isn't functioning mechanically the way he knows it should, and it's just not there yet, but it needs time. Some combination of one or two or all of those and certainly more I'm sure I missed and am no expert on. And so I think for kawhi, he probably felt good enough to try it out on the court, and he wasn't that good but a lot of times in regards to injuries, if it's more discomfort than it is pain and it's not getting worse, it's worth attempting again because this is how we build strength in an area after injury. But unfortunately for us and for kawhi, it seems like it's not really getting better and perhaps was made worse (we don't quite know) - all while losing us games. So while i don't blame him or the team for trying to get him on to the court to test things out and see if he could get things rolling, it definitely has hurt us and there very much is potential for those two games to have set him back in regards to his progress. Or, who knows? Maybe it's what he needed-ish to see where he was at and the injury needed in-game stimulation to accelerate its repair.

Anyway, best we can do is hope that the team continues to hold strong and that kawhi heals sooner, rather than later. If we could go back i'm sure we'd let kawhi keep resting but it is what it is, and we should feel fortunate to even be where we're at, all things considered - which is in a BO3 with HCA, while our best player is mending, and quite frankly, while the other team must be reeling.

[Clemenza]

Look at Lukas’s D on that third shot.

Then look at his reaction on the 4th shot, when Harden beats Maxi off the dribble

Mavs fans are mad at Kidd for having Kleber in instead of Gafford or Lively. If they were in instead of Kleber and attempt to block Harden's floaters then that opens up the lob pass to Zu or Plumlee. The video shows that the problem was Luka and Washington playing turnstile defense and allowing Harden into the paint. They were exhausted from coming back down from 30 but still they have to put up a better effort than that. Maybe we discovered something and we'll see more of Harden getting by his defender and getting deep in the paint going forward.

[donemilio21]

game 5 strategy should be continue to exploit Luka's defensive flaws and get him into foul trouble.

Btw through 4 games Harden has 73.1 TS% (best rate among those who logged in at least 100 minutes) and averaging 41 MPG. He has been effective. Let him be Harden.

[nickhx2]

Look at Lukas’s D on that third shot.

Then look at his reaction on the 4th shot, when Harden beats Maxi off the dribble

Mavs fans are mad at Kidd for having Kleber in instead of Gafford or Lively. If they were in instead of Kleber and attempt to block Harden's floaters then that opens up the lob pass to Zu or Plumlee. The video shows that the problem was Luka and Washington playing turnstile defense and allowing Harden into the paint. They were exhausted from coming back down from 30 but still they have to put up a better effort than that. Maybe we discovered something and we'll see more of Harden getting by his defender and getting deep in the paint going forward.

a bit of irony cause luka played ok D in that 2nd possession but was mostly a non-entity on every other one. bit more irony cause in the final one, he looks at zu, but inexplicably moves up to defend harden at the rim despite kleber already being there, which allowed zu to have a free shot at an alley-oop if harden needed it. what's neat is you can see just how screwed they are because they can't deny the initial drive, which causes the guy having to step up on harden to be stuck between a rock (zu?) and a hard(en?) place every time lol.

i mean i think gafford or lively would still have been better alternatives but that's a war of attrition the mavs were destined to lose given luka's inability to stop the initial drive.

[KL2]

I think it's fairly clear why the team had been as vague and obscure as it had been leading up until this point. This is a thing that isn't going away so easily, and the times they listed him as questionable, he really WAS questionable.

Kudos to your entire post and mentioning the mental aspect of it. That has to be as exhausting as the physical side is.

I thought it was interesting that Lawrence Frank said Leonard would be with the team but was never on the bench. I’m sure he won’t travel back to Dallas for obvious reasons. I know he’ll do what he’s supposed to but I hope he doesn’t distant himself from the team. Must be hard to sit on the bench and be happy and cheer your teammates on when you see them playing so well without you. Especially after putting in all the work to be available and have your body dip out on you again. He was so despondent during game 3 and press conference afterwards. Hopefully he’s there Wednesday.

Makes you wonder what the bench marks were to make everyone feel good about him returning to game action. No practices. No contact. Was he doing his usual movements in workouts, walk throughs, and shoot arounds?

It wasn’t clear where he’s at in the process now. Trying to piece everything we’ve gotten it doesn’t sound like he has new injury to it or regressed. Is he where he was before returning to game action? Treatments, rehab and ramping up as he progresses? Is he back to square one of rest and treatments? Somewhere in the middle?

[nickhx2]

I think it's fairly clear why the team had been as vague and obscure as it had been leading up until this point. This is a thing that isn't going away so easily, and the times they listed him as questionable, he really WAS questionable.

Kudos to your entire post and mentioning the mental aspect of it. That has to be as exhausting as the physical side is.

I thought it was interesting that Lawrence Frank said Leonard would be with the team but was never on the bench. I’m sure he won’t travel back to Dallas for obvious reasons. I know he’ll do what he’s supposed to but I hope he doesn’t distant himself from the team. Must be hard to sit on the bench and be happy and cheer your teammates on when you see them playing so well without you. Especially after putting in all the work to be available and have your body dip out on you again. He was so despondent during game 3 and press conference afterwards. Hopefully he’s there Wednesday.

Makes you wonder what the bench marks were to make everyone feel good about him returning to game action. No practices. No contact. Was he doing his usual movements in workouts, walk throughs, and shoot arounds?

It wasn’t clear where he’s at in the process now. Trying to piece everything we’ve gotten it doesn’t sound like he has new injury to it or regressed. Is he where he was before returning to game action? Treatments, rehab and ramping up as he progresses? Is he back to square one of rest and treatments? Somewhere in the middle?

i wouldn't pretend to know what kawhi thinks in regards to his team playing well without him (though if you ask me i don't think he has those types of feelings), but i do find his distancing from the team perplexing and i'm not a fan of it. i do, however, think that when he takes his own space, it does have something to do with being uncomfortable being the center of attention for negative reasons and not wanting to be a distraction to everybody else. but we really don't know.

i would assume for kawhi it had to do with being relatively pain-free, and often times with injuries the only way to know if something is right is by testing it. and i think for pretty much every athlete, the only way to get over the psychological fears of "is this thing working right? am i safe yet?" is to actually do the thing, so you can let the body tell you it's ok. but unfortunately for kawhi, that wasn't the case.

i agree it's unclear where he's at in the process, because he doesn't want to tell us anything and i'm relatively sure he's instructed the team to keep as quiet as possible, within league rules. all we can do is speculate, which is part of why i personally prefer to just let the chips fall where they may in regards to information, though i do understand why fans wish they had more information and have a higher expectation than i do.

i mean yeah i'd like to know, too - if kawhi's improved, or he's taken step backs, if he's the same, etc., but my perspective is the same as it's been for a long while now, which is, it's probably likely that even kawhi doesn't really know because his knee's just feeling however the hell it wants to feel. i'm no athlete but i've rehabbed multiple training injuries over the past several years, and multiple at the same time over the past couple, and much of the time you just don't know what is what and all you can think about is how life sucks and your body's never gonna be the same again. and part of this is because recovery is NOT linear, and you can literally do EXACTLY what you are supposed to be doing every day, as diligently as you can, and it feels the same for like 3 weeks straight until one day you're like "oh wait, it feels normal all of a sudden?" but even then you're still wondering if that injury is gonna repeat itself by virtue of you breathing, which is why it's crappy to deal with and ramping up slowly is ideal - and i'm sure it's 1000000x more complex and worse for a world-class athlete like kawhi. but i mean, this is just my experience and i think og has mentioned he's dealt with actual basketball injuries so i would think his take is more in-depth than mine, as i'm just someone who likes to exercise a lot.

my hope for kawhi is that nothing got worse, of course, and when frank et. al tell us "there's no structural damage" it's my opinion that that's literally some of the best information we could get. as far as the inflammation, i guess we'll see how it goes, and my hope is it all of a sudden improves dramatically by itself and he's ok to play - and if he's back before the end of the series i honestly would not be surprised, all things considered.

[Wammy Giveaway]

If/when the Clippers defeat the Mavericks, their 2nd round opponent is going to be the Thunder. The same team where they shipped Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to for superstar Paul George as a condition to signing Kawhi Leonard. The Leonard-George era has been filled with heartbreak, heartaches and heart attacks, forcing Clippers to realize a Dynamic Duo was not good enough. So the superstar trade for James Harden was made, and the Clipper's first ever True Big 3 era arrived.

Next series is the "meet your maker" series. Thunder are in the playoffs, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been MVP, and are no. 1 seed with a high chance at making the NBA Finals. Clippers, meanwhile, are on the opposite end fighting for their dear life while making everything difficult just to be loved. And they created this new Thunder generation, too.

This is the series where everything is on the line. Whoever wins this series will win the Thunder-Clippers trade of 2019. It's imperative that Clippers must win it because everything is on the line: Lue's job; free agency fates of George, Harden and Westbrook; the franchise's reputation (Leonard and Ballmer's); and the legacy of Jerry West. Rumor has it that if Clippers lose to Thunder, they're blowing it up. All of it; they're willing to fire Frank as well. Told you it was an Ultimatum Killer Kombat season.

Time for the Clippers to face the music, and face their fears.

[PeteyPablo]

I think it's fairly clear why the team had been as vague and obscure as it had been leading up until this point. This is a thing that isn't going away so easily, and the times they listed him as questionable, he really WAS questionable.

Kudos to your entire post and mentioning the mental aspect of it. That has to be as exhausting as the physical side is.

I thought it was interesting that Lawrence Frank said Leonard would be with the team but was never on the bench. I’m sure he won’t travel back to Dallas for obvious reasons. I know he’ll do what he’s supposed to but I hope he doesn’t distant himself from the team. Must be hard to sit on the bench and be happy and cheer your teammates on when you see them playing so well without you. Especially after putting in all the work to be available and have your body dip out on you again. He was so despondent during game 3 and press conference afterwards. Hopefully he’s there Wednesday.

Makes you wonder what the bench marks were to make everyone feel good about him returning to game action. No practices. No contact. Was he doing his usual movements in workouts, walk throughs, and shoot arounds?

It wasn’t clear where he’s at in the process now. Trying to piece everything we’ve gotten it doesn’t sound like he has new injury to it or regressed. Is he where he was before returning to game action? Treatments, rehab and ramping up as he progresses? Is he back to square one of rest and treatments? Somewhere in the middle?

i wouldn't pretend to know what kawhi thinks in regards to his team playing well without him (though if you ask me i don't think he has those types of feelings), but i do find his distancing from the team perplexing and i'm not a fan of it. i do, however, think that when he takes his own space, it does have something to do with being uncomfortable being the center of attention for negative reasons and not wanting to be a distraction to everybody else. but we really don't know.

i would assume for kawhi it had to do with being relatively pain-free, and often times with injuries the only way to know if something is right is by testing it. and i think for pretty much every athlete, the only way to get over the psychological fears of "is this thing working right? am i safe yet?" is to actually do the thing, so you can let the body tell you it's ok. but unfortunately for kawhi, that wasn't the case.

i agree it's unclear where he's at in the process, because he doesn't want to tell us anything and i'm relatively sure he's instructed the team to keep as quiet as possible, within league rules. all we can do is speculate, which is part of why i personally prefer to just let the chips fall where they may in regards to information, though i do understand why fans wish they had more information and have a higher expectation than i do.

i mean yeah i'd like to know, too - if kawhi's improved, or he's taken step backs, if he's the same, etc., but my perspective is the same as it's been for a long while now, which is, it's probably likely that even kawhi doesn't really know because his knee's just feeling however the hell it wants to feel. i'm no athlete but i've rehabbed multiple training injuries over the past several years, and multiple at the same time over the past couple, and much of the time you just don't know what is what and all you can think about is how life sucks and your body's never gonna be the same again. and part of this is because recovery is NOT linear, and you can literally do EXACTLY what you are supposed to be doing every day, as diligently as you can, and it feels the same for like 3 weeks straight until one day you're like "oh wait, it feels normal all of a sudden?" but even then you're still wondering if that injury is gonna repeat itself by virtue of you breathing, which is why it's crappy to deal with and ramping up slowly is ideal - and i'm sure it's 1000000x more complex and worse for a world-class athlete like kawhi. but i mean, this is just my experience and i think og has mentioned he's dealt with actual basketball injuries so i would think his take is more in-depth than mine, as i'm just someone who likes to exercise a lot.

my hope for kawhi is that nothing got worse, of course, and when frank et. al tell us "there's no structural damage" it's my opinion that that's literally some of the best information we could get. as far as the inflammation, i guess we'll see how it goes, and my hope is it all of a sudden improves dramatically by itself and he's ok to play - and if he's back before the end of the series i honestly would not be surprised, all things considered.

Kawhi has come back to play over the last 4 years with the Clippers after ACL and MCL injuries. He comes back just fine and his numbers back it up. People enjoy talking trash about the guy. He was playing great all year this season.

It takes him a few games to get back into elite form and people get orgasms off saying he is washed and this and that.

Clippers can win this series vs Mavs with out Kawhi. They might be able to squeak by OKC with out him. But they will need him at full strength in the WCF and beyond.

[clipperlover]

Kawhi has come back to play over the last 4 years with the Clippers after ACL and MCL injuries. He comes back just fine and his numbers back it up. People enjoy talking trash about the guy. He was playing great all year this season.

It takes him a few games to get back into elite form and people get orgasms off saying he is washed and this and that.

Clippers can win this series vs Mavs with out Kawhi. They might be able to squeak by OKC with out him. But they will need him at full strength in the WCF and beyond.

I recall people whining about him not being there for Game 1. He comes back in 2 and 3 and isn't 100% and people are "he shouldn't have come back". Which is it people? Do we want him to play through injury or not?

If Kawhi can come back and giver us 80%, that could help, but PG and Harden have to play the game as if Kawhi is just Amir Coffey out there. They need to stay aggressive. Him coming back to be the #1 option is where his body is behind.

[esqtvd]

Hm.

Read on Twitter