The LA Clippers are having a bit of a weird year, to say the least. Before the 2025-26 season started, they got hit with allegations of circumventing league rules to sign Kawhi Leonard, which dominated most of the discussion in all basketball media for weeks.
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Their start to the season wasn’t that great either, which furthered the criticism. To make matters worse, they kicked out their biggest star ever in Chris Paul in what was to be his retirement season. They would have wanted the Kawhi discourse to die down on its merit but nobody on the front desk would have wanted it to be replaced by the Chris Paul discourse.
Regardless, they turned their season around. They climbed the standings and jumped over the .500 mark earlier this month. However, they seem to have hit a block, and are on a 4-game losing streak with Kawhi Leonard missing two of the last three games due to an ankle injury.
As they take on perhaps the only team with worse luck than them, the Dallas Mavericks, will Leonard find it in himself to join his team on the court?
The 34-year-old was really enjoying himself last Saturday, with 31 points on 13-23 shooting from the floor, even though the Sacramento Kings ended up snapping the Clippers 4-match winning streak. What’s worse, however, was Leonard had to be removed from the game after going down with an ankle injury.
Despite being visibly uncomfortable, Leonard led LA against the Pelicans and even though he ended with 25 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals in 29 minutes, the Clippers suffered their 3rd consecutive loss. This brings us to tonight’s game vs the Dallas Mavericks.
The LA Clippers have listed Kawhi Leonard Questionable for tonight’s game vs the Dallas Mavericks.
Kawhi Leonard is QUESTIONABLE tomorrow vs. the Mavs with his left ankle sprain.
Bennedict Mathurin, Bradley Beal, and Yanic Konan Niederhauser remain OUT for the Clippers
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) March 20, 2026
The Clippers are hoping to lock in the 7th or 8th seed, since anyone after that will start the play-in with a do-or-die game. After a mid-season turnaround of significant proportion, the Clippers were being considered favorites to end the regular season as the no.8 seed.
Then they went ahead and lost 4 in a row, 3 of which came against non-playoff teams. So now they are tied with the Portland Trail Blazers and the Golden State Warriors in the loss column.
Even if they end up below the 8th seed, it doesn’t mean that their playoff hopes have been washed away completely. They will just have to win 2 away games but they are 15-21 in that regard this season, so it would be best to avoid that situation.
On top of that, Benedict Mathurin is expected to sit out for at least another game with a toe injury, Darius Garland is also going to be available for back to back games. This is why the Clippers will hope Leonard can rejoin the squad as soon as possible.
