About a week ago, in the first round of the Western Conference Clippers and the Suns G1, Kawai Leonard hit 38 points on 24 shots to lead the team to win on the road and regain home-court advantage. Leonard last played a playoff game 671 days ago, in Game 2 of the 2021 Western Conference semifinals, he broke the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and underwent repair surgery.
After 671 days, Leonard was as fit as if nothing had happened, and he played 44 minutes in Game 1 of the playoffs, mostly in mid-range, shooting two lethal three-pointers in the final moments, acting tireless, so excited that he even wanted to take two soma steps. Craig, the Suns player opposite Leonard, pouted: "He's had a couple of walks, but overall it's really strong. ”
This is the 13th playoff game in Leonard's career to reach 30 points, just one game short of Bob McAdoo, the most 30+ playoffs in team history, and two days later he will tie the record with 31 points in the second game of the series, which is enough to show how clean the Clippers' playoff history is.
In fact, Leonard's form was already on display at the end of the season, and he played in the team's last three games, including one full back-to-back, real back-to-back, played at least 28 minutes per game, and did not engage in any half-court load management of broken back-to-back, and eventually led the team to three consecutive wins.
Basically, this three-game winning streak has already expressed the determination of Leonard and the Clippers, who did not want to avoid the fourth-place Suns in the West. It seemed like a long period of careful load management and determination to rise to the occasion was rewarded by God, the Clippers won the first game without the peppers, and more importantly, Leonard made Durant look like a toy for one person for the first time in his career, and the all-out Suns suddenly became less scary.
The Clippers team has also entered the confidence that the strongest person has been in the team, after all, the playoffs have always been the stage of superstars, the history of carrying the weight forward is in the past, and the rest of his life will rely on Leonard to carry us on his back, and the emotional spread breeds, quite a kind of son finding a good job, marrying his daughter-in-law, earning a lot of money, not in vain, Laozi has worked hard for him for forty years, and now he can finally enjoy the blessing of the old father's comfort.
Teammates have become loyal fans. Zubac said Leonard "played the best basketball" and said he had confidence in the team because "we have this guy around." Former Toronto teammate Powell said he was "excited to see Leonard up close and personal again with that aggressiveness, calmness and rhythm in the playoffs."
Manager Tyronn Lue said of Leonard's 44 minutes in the first game: "That's why we saved him before. “
Boss Ballmer is even more excited, with the 67-year-old world's top ten richest man staying up at night after the first game, saying he can only calm himself down by tweeting, reading The New York Times and playing video games. It sounds like he's probably only telling a third of the truth, because no one knows how reading The New York Times and playing video games can calm a person down, but tweeting does.
Leonard is a proven believer in sports medical science. After playing 21 minutes against the Lakers in the regular season opener, he announced that he would be doing a lot of load management this season: "You have to gradually increase the game time to get the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee strong. If you play 38 minutes in the first game, it can easily weaken. I listen to the doctor. It's been a long season. We want to make the playoffs, and we want me to play in the playoffs. ”
Leonard missed a total of 30 games this season, including 22 with a right knee discomfort and 6 with a sprained right ankle. In a game against the Grizzlies, he and the Clippers even invented half-court load management. But on the other hand, things are indeed going in a better direction, Leonard has not missed consecutive games since December 5, and of the 27 All-Stars this season, the only ones who can miss two consecutive games after December 5 are Tatum, Jalen Jackson, Sabonis Jr., Siakam and Adebayo.
"I think it's all about perseverance," Leonard said, "trying to make sure your knees are strong." Make sure I stay healthy for the rest of my career. So it's going to be a marathon. ”
So he put out his performance in Game 1 of the playoffs. As a result, the scales of the series have tilted sharply, not only on the field, but also in public opinion, criticism of Leonard's many previous long and sudden closures has been silenced, and the praise of "load management" has reached a new level.
The Athletic, a well-known American sports media, wrote a 4,000-word essay for Leonard immediately after the opening game. The article is cleverly conceived and brilliant, and through the experiences of athletes who also suffer from former crucicles - including Fultz, Klay, Ingalls, Murray, Gallinari, LaVine, and Saric - who have met during the 671 days of the playoffs - most of them are saying that this is an injury that takes time, "Where do the fans know what we have paid for on the road to recovery!" This demonstrates the necessity of Leonard's recuperation in this way.
Leonard said: "We play to inspire other young players, we injured people will support each other, encourage patients to just keep working hard, keep improving themselves, and then come back and enjoy the game." ”
With Leonard like that, you can really enjoy the game, and even if the Clippers lost Game 2, Lue was happy with the 1-1 result on the road, adding a bit of mastery in his postgame interview: "The sun can take something different from us. But we can also adapt round by round. That's what we're good at in this series. ”
Taryn Lue didn't expect - who would have thought that the thing that was taken away was Leonard?
Before training for the third game, Lue received news that Leonard would be sidelined for G3, citing discomfort in his right knee. According to Clippers president Frank, Leonard had a "right knee sprain" as early as G1, but still hit G2 with the injury, and by G3, the situation did not improve, but worsened.
As for Leonard's own reaction, which has come out of his mouth every time he has taken a break this season, Frank described it as "very disappointed." ”
Lew put it a little more: "Frustrating. Leonard did not miss any rehabilitation, and the diet was reasonable and scientific. It's been a lot of hard work to get to where I am now. And then something like this happened. I feel sorry for him. ”
Wording that sounds very familiar. After the Pelicans were out of the playoffs, team veteran and union president McCollum said: "We need to get the right treatment, get enough sleep, hydrate properly and eat right. "What Tyronn Lue meant, Leonard did all this, the injury was only because of misfortune, what McCollum meant, it is unknown.
Regardless of what the players and coaches think, the turn-based show in the arena of public opinion began irrevocably. A few days ago, people who were still praising Len Shenard like the modern Jordan turned the gun, "I have already said" and "the playoffs are still engaged in load management without professionalism, you know, back in 2018..." The arguments are probably not mainstream, and more fans are just "very disappointed" that the strong cannot be sustained after seeing the powerful.
Most of these fans without love and hate are probably numb. Leonard's injury seems different from most players, mainly because you rarely see Leonard express his injury directly on the field except for the kick that Pachuria gave him.
You don't know how he got hurt when he was at the Spurs, and after the impact of the Clippers' anterior cruciate ligament laceration, Leonard played a few more rounds before he came off, and finally played 34 minutes, and the team won by 14 points, and you can easily think that it was just a normal rotation, and then he was reimbursed for the season.
It is always easier for people to understand the injuries that are shown, you see a person in the camera breaking his leg, twisting his foot, pulling a broken Achilles tendon, twisting his waist, being trampled on his chest and wailing wildly on the ground, you see the expression distorted by pain in the lens, even if the silence is turned on, you can describe the heart-rending scream in your heart, this is the injury you can see, this is the situation you can understand. But for most ordinary fans who have never been plagued by injuries, Leonard's situation is indeed too difficult to understand, and most of his injuries come from news reports or team announcements rather than witnesses. Of course, fans will ask, didn't you just score 31 points two days ago? Don't you see where he is injured, can't you stick to any injury, this is a playoffs, isn't it often described as an injury called "if this is the playoffs, I can definitely play" disease?
Also very disappointed was Ballmer, who phrased differently from "disappointed" but "regretted": "Since I owned the Clippers, injuries have been my biggest regret." "It's a pity that although it is said that raising soldiers for a thousand days, no one really intends to use it only for a while. Ballmer lightly cooled a game, but immediately reaped bad news, and there was extra time, and Leonard G4 would not play.
In the face of this news, there were still people in the Clippers locker room laughing loudly, and Lu said: "It is very sudden that G3 Leonard does not play, but G4 does not play in advance, and I am ready." ”
The next day, the Clippers lost G4 and trailed the Suns 3-1 in the series.
If Leonard and Pepper can still make a comeback in this series, they will have to start from a 3-1 down, and they don't know where this sprained right knee can row the boat. In addition to vindicating Weizhong's grievances, Durant expressed regret, "I am disappointed that Leonard was injured. I hope to face Leonard, it's fun to compete with him... Well, it's not fun, it's challenging, he's too strong. ”
Whether the sprained right knee this time will make Leonard reimbursed for the season is still unknown, but the marathon belonging to Leonard has not yet reached the end. Stephen S. A. Smith clamored that it was only eye-catching to let Leonard retire, Leonard would not retire because of this, and he was far from this point, after all, you see Ross is still playing.
But for the Clippers, each season, or seasons with a relatively fixed roster, is no longer a marathon that can be completed by one person. To use Barkley's analogy, it was a bus speeding down the highway, and Leonard was clearly the driver of the bus, an old driver in the prime of life, extremely steady, skilled, familiar with the route, and goal-oriented, and if he were still awake, how wonderful it would be.