Kawhi Leonard will miss his second consecutive game on Saturday due to a right knee sprain, as the Clippers have officially ruled him out of Game 4 of their first-round series against Phoenix, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Leonard reportedly suffered the injury in Game 1, but was able to play through it for the first two games of the series. However, he was ruled out of Thursday’s Game 3, which the Clippers wound up losing to fall behind in the series 2-1, and he will now miss Game 4 as well.
According to John Hollinger of The Athletic, there was optimism that Leonard might be able to return on Saturday, but obviously the team decided to play it safe with its best player. As Hollinger notes, the star forward will have multiple days of extra rest — Game 5 is set for Monday in Phoenix.
Leonard had been dominant through two games, averaging 34.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 2.0 steals on .545/.600/.882 shooting in 40.2 minutes. Norman Powell (42 points on 15-of-23 shooting, five rebounds, three assists) and Russell Westbrook (30 points on 11-of-23 shooting, 12 assists, eight rebounds, three steals) had huge performances in his absence Thursday, but the shorthanded Clippers — who were already playing without Paul George due to his own right knee sprain — lost by a final score of 129-124.
Head coach Tyronn Lue went with an unorthodox lineup of five guards in the fourth quarter of Game 3 (Powell, Westbrook, Eric Gordon, Terance Mann and Bones Hyland), and while the group had a lot of success on offense, it was unable to slow down Devin Booker and defensive rebounding was a struggle. It will be interesting to see Lue if utilizes another extreme small-ball group or tinkers the lineup further for Game 4 with Leonard once again sidelined.
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