12:37pm: More imaging will be performed on Leonard’s knee to determine the severity of the injury, but those tests will have to wait until the swelling subsides, tweets Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.
11:57am: The Clippers fear that forward Kawhi Leonard has suffered an ACL injury, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Leonard will miss Game 5 of Los Angeles’ series against the Jazz on Wednesday night due to a right knee injury that the Clippers referred to today as a sprain. Neither the team’s announcement nor Charania’s report indicates that Kawhi is undergoing an MRI on his injured knee, but presumably that would be the next step to determine if there’s any damage to the ACL.
A full tear of the ACL would be a worst-case scenario for Leonard and the Clippers, but even a partial tear would almost certainly be a season-ender — that’s the injury that has kept Spencer Dinwiddie on the shelf since December. A low-grade sprain would be the best case, tweets Jeff Stotts of In Street Clothes.
The timing couldn’t be much worse for Leonard and the Clippers, who have won two games in a row against Utah and are just two games away from making the Western Conference Finals for the first time in team history. With Kawhi unavailable on Wednesday – and potentially for longer than that – the Clippers have suddenly become major underdogs to get past the Jazz and into the third round.
We’ll provide more updates on Leonard’s status as they’re reported or announced.
Damn! Hope he’s ok or else they done WOW!
Last team standing (without crutches) wins.
Least injured team wins the title. What a sad postseason.
It’s always been like that haha
Would have been nice if a certain recent 5x in a row finalist “chased wins” this year, instead of prioritizing finding out all the worst possible ways to play James Wiseman. Unused TPE but going with an 8-man roster for 2 months only to get rolled in the wild card games, great FO and coaching performance by GSW this year, smh. Bjelica available for free and Fournier available for future second rounders but pass to play a depleted roster in the regular season. Disgusting, abhorrent behavior by GSW’s all-Lacob FO. Bring back Jerry West at any cost!
Didn’t they used the TPE on KOubre?
I think they meant DPE
DPE yes. TPE was on Oubre.
M&M we get that you don’t like SHE FO. Please stop posting about it On every article. How many times can beat a read.horse!
Can PG step up?
No
How do u know about Curtis Rowe but don’t know who Paul George is?
This is the part where you admit you were wrong. Please get familiar with Paul George, he’s been great at basketball for a long time now
Clippers have only path to win – 3 pointers
T-Mann time!
Sheesh, I know I want him to play on GSW but this is too much…
GSW is where his knee issues originated.
Gee it was probably planned thru his Uncle not to play this many games in a row. Gotta rest Kawai.
Bummer
He was going off!
It’s be interesting to see how players respond to all these injuries as lebron has already spoken out. They were forced into a season crunch. Yea they get paid millions but that millions is tied to their health, which could impact their careers.
NBA leaders not looking good.
Forced? LOL. No. This season was designed around the Union’s parameters, and the terms of the agreement actually gave each individual player his own opt out. So, each player who played did so at his own election. Owners are looking bad because they gave players the choice?
Not much of a choice… nobody took it, who was reasonably healthy.
Hope it’s not ACL. Clippers are done. Chris better be ok. Could be their yr now.
Could be! Still wide open!