The Los Angeles Clippers’ star-studded roster shouldn’t need any more motivation than they already have to give their absolute best in Game 6 against the Dallas Mavericks. LA is down 3-2 in the series after a historically horrendous performance in Game 5 and faces a do-or-die situation in Texas. If they lose, their long wait for an NBA Finals appearance will extend to at least 55 years and their tenure in the Crypto.com Arena will end with only one Western Conference Finals appearance.
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Additionally, the superstar forward, Kawhi Leonard, has missed three games of this series, including the last two, with a right knee injury. As per the NBA’s latest injury report, he’s set to remain on the sidelines when his team attempts to keep their season alive.
The Clippers wouldn’t want their last game at their soon-to-be former home stadium to be a franchise-playoff-record 30-point loss and would like a shot at redemption by pushing the series to a deciding Game 7. They’ll have to earn that opportunity with a second-straight road win over the Mavericks, that too without two-time NBA Finals MVP.
Leonard was relatively healthy during the regular season and played 68 games, the most he’s managed in the last seven seasons. But as luck would have it, he suffered a knee injury with less than two weeks left in the regular season and has yet to recover.
He fought through the pain and played in Games 2 and 3, but had two horrendous outings and decided to sit out of the last two matches. Leonard’s injury has crippled the Clippers and they are now tasked with winning on the road without him to extend their season by at least one more game.
Have Paul George and Kawhi Leonard played their last game together?
When the Clippers added reigning Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to a roster that had taken the two-time defending champions Golden State Warriors to six games in the playoffs the previous year, they instantly became title favorites, expected to be the new top dogs in LA. But things didn’t pan out quite as everyone envisioned.
In their first foray into the playoffs, the Clippers’ superteam blew a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets. The following year, they made it to the Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history, but Leonard’s injury meant they were no match against the Phoenix Suns juggernaut.
The injury-riddled Clippers missed the playoffs in the 2021-22 season and last year, the Suns thrashed them 4-1 in the first round, as Leonard missed three games while George didn’t register a single minute due to injury. The injury bug has yet again bitten the Clippers in the playoffs this season, unlike previous campaigns where Leonard and George were guaranteed to return and try again, Game 6 could be the last time the latter plays in a Clippers uniform.
George is expected to decline his player option for the 2024-25 season and test free agency in the offseason. If George leaves, the Clippers will look back on his tenure with the team as a failure because they failed to accomplish one goal they had when he landed in LA.
