When Kawhi Leonard is in top form, he moves effortlessly on the basketball court, gliding through traffic as if nothing else matters. He swiftly navigates to his desired spot on the floor, rises up with precision, and scores with ease. In a recent game against the New York Knicks, Leonard led his team to victory with a stellar performance in the second half.
Despite missing numerous games due to injuries, Leonard has been shining on the court lately. His scoring, rebounding, and defensive stats have been impressive, showcasing his true capabilities. With Leonard back in action, the Clippers have been on a winning streak, climbing up the Western Conference standings.
Leonard’s return has bolstered the Clippers’ lineup, resulting in a strong defense and a potent offense. With Leonard on the floor, the team has been excelling on both ends of the court, making them a force to be reckoned with as the season progresses.
With the second-most dominant five-man unit in the NBA this season (minimum 150 minutes played): Zubac, Leonard, Powell, Harden, and ace defensive swingman Derrick Jones Jr., a quintet that has blown opponents’ doors off by 23.6 points per 100 possessions. With a deep core of contributors — point of attack menace Kris Dunn, resurgent combo guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, do-it-all wings Nicolas Batum and Amir Coffey, huge backup point forward Ben Simmons — giving Lue a ton of options to find answers as matchups and schemes dictate. And with a ceiling that, at full strength, could pose serious problems for the favorites in the Western Conference playoff bracket … provided, of course, the Clips make it that far.
L.A. enters Thursday’s action in sixth in the West, with the same 41-31 record as the Warriors but holding the head-to-head tiebreaker over Golden State, and a half-game ahead of the Timberwolves. Various projection models peg the Clippers’ chances of securing a top-six spot and avoiding the play-in tournament at anywhere from 44% to 68%.
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Those probabilities will likely shift dramatically over the final two and a half weeks of the regular season; on this week’s episode of “The Big Number,” my colleague Tom Haberstroh noted that the Clippers’ season finale in San Francisco against the Warriors could very well decide who gets the sixth seed and who has to scrap it out in the play-in. That means that every Clippers game from here through April 13 is essentially a playoff game — high stakes, high leverage, high pressure. In situations like that, it’s pretty cool to be able to toss the ball to a player whose pulse never seems to quicken, who perpetually exudes the unbothered imperial confidence of someone who knows exactly what to do, how to do it, and how to remove variables like the opposition from the equation.
The fear, with a player with Leonard’s phone-book-thick medical file, is that you’re always one false step away from disaster. What he’s been doing for the past month, though, is why the Clippers continue to choose to live with that fear — because, if you can just get him to springtime healthy, in a seven-game series, Kawhi Leonard can put the fear of God into anyone.
following sentence using different words:
“Despite the rain, the picnic went ahead as planned.”
The picnic proceeded as scheduled despite the inclement weather.