After 14 games with neither on the court at the same time, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard will finally play tonight together versus Boston.
Christmas is coming early for Clipper Nation. According to multiple reports, both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George will be active tonight for the LA Clippers. This is the first time both players will take the court together after joining forces this summer via free agency and a trade.
The acquisition of the superstar duo thrust the Clippers into the championship discussion, but with Paul George undergoing surgery on both shoulders this summer, fans knew it would at least be a few weeks before we finally saw him play with Kawhi.
What we didn’t know, however, was that Kawhi Leonard would miss three consecutive games due to a knee injury. Leonard suffered a knee contusion in the loss to the Houston Rockets on November 13, a night before George was scheduled to make his debut.
George played against the Pelicans on the 14th in a losing effort but did not look like he had been sitting out from basketball since April. Since then, George and the Clippers have won two in a row including a blowout of the Atlanta Hawks where the team scored 150 points in just four quarters.
That same team will now have Kawhi Leonard back in the starting lineup. The defense of the two, combined with Patrick Beverley, will be one of the top in the league. More importantly, Leonard’s scoring should help the Clippers slow-starting offense.
On the year, Leonard has managed to score 26.8 points in his nine appearances. George, in his three games, has averaged 29.3. Sharing the court, neither average is likely to remain as high as they currently are but defenses will have a much harder time deciding how to guard the two stars.
Staples Center will be extra loud tonight and the Boston Celtics provide a top-tier test for the stars. No matter the outcome, seeing the two on the court will have us all talking for days.