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Hopefully the Clippers don’t get a fine. Harden admitted they knew Leonard was going to be out a few days ago.

KL2 wrote:Hopefully the Clippers don’t get a fine. Harden admitted they knew Leonard was going to be out a few days ago.

he probably shouldn't have said that- he hesitated before responding.

However, perhaps they could play it off as the low probability of him playing

Never thought I’d say this but let’s hope Skip Bayless is right and not Shams.

Skip was the first to say Leonard would be out game 1. He’s been saying he’d be back for game 2.

Shams here makes it sound like it’ll be longer. He got the injection early in the month. After rest and ramping up on the court the hope was the inflammation would go down and it has not. He’s done no 5 on 5 or contact yet. They don’t know what’s causing the inflammation. Still cautiously optimistic he’ll return sooner rather than later.

Leonard will go through practice today and see how he feels tomorrow.

No contact practice for entire team. It’s more walk through stuff.

I hope Skip is right but I think he’ll sit game 2 as well. No contact before being cleared? I’d be stunned if so.

KL2 wrote:Leonard will go through practice today and see how he feels tomorrow.

No contact practice for entire team. It’s more walk through stuff.

I hope Skip is right but I think he’ll sit game 2 as well. No contact before being cleared? I’d be stunned if so.

It would be such a boost for us to get Kawhi back and play well in Game 2, we'd have a pretty good shot of winning it despite the fact that Dallas will surely play better Game 2.

Fingers crossed for Skip's insider info...

Played a lot of minutes but doesn’t seem to have the lift.

Team worst -8 in game 2 but the whole team shot poorly, only put up 93 points, the last a 3 by PG as time ran out.

He looked good on a couple of dunks in game 3 but still doesn’t seem to have the same lift when he tried a couple of midrange jumpers.

Then turnovers when he tried to dribble through the defense, including double teams. Only
7 shot attempts.

Saw some of the beat writers talking about how he looked to be a decoy last night. It was one of the worst attempts I’ve seen. If he can’t be used to set screens because of the knee then what? He wasn’t even parked in the corners for possible open 3’s. He was just there and then there with no rhyme or reason.

One of the most bizarre game plans.

I applaud him for wanting and trying to play but … Who makes the call to sit him even if he wants to play?

He got treatment last night and this morning. Will get more tonight. He’ll do some stuff today with no contact of course. Questionable for game 4.

No way his knee is right with the quick turnaround. Just rest him and hope he’s good by Wednesday.

For the love of god, sit his glass @$$ for G4. He ain't gonna help the team running around with that 80 year old knee.

He can barely bend his knees. He’s taking shots on his tippy toes. What are we doing here?

Did he get injured again a few weeks ago or it's just one of his previous injuries flaring up again?

wco81 wrote:Did he get injured again a few weeks ago or it's just one of his previous injuries flaring up again?

It’s inflammation in his right knee. The surgically repaired one. It flared up in the beginning of last season and he missed 25 days. It flared up again some time in March. He last played on the 31st. Must have been playing through it until then. How long though?

Before returning Lue said he hit all the bench marks he needed to return. Clearly not the case if he couldn’t practice or take contact. Who made the call to let him play?

Who knows how much time he’ll miss now?

A lot depends on where he’s at in this process. From the sounds of things he didn’t regress it just hasn’t responded like they hoped it would. Have they put him back on rest along with treatment? That’s square one though. Treatment and more rehab? If so it’s a fingers crossed and hope for the best.

I guess he’ll be healthy in time for Team USA.

KL2 wrote:Before returning Lue said he hit all the bench marks he needed to return. Clearly not the case if he couldn’t practice or take contact. Who made the call to let him play?

I think not practicing or taking contact though was due to playoff scheduling rather than him say sitting out practice the day before the game. There wasn't an option to have him do that, he felt fine, so they felt he was good to go for Game 2.

Normally we all think Kawhi unnecessarily sits out, this time I think we can only really question it in retrospect.

Reiterated its stubborn inflammation. Structurally it’s all sound.

Back to load management.

So he has an unknown cause knee inflammation? Or maybe they don't want to reveal the cause?. I'm not a doctor but it doesn't seem a very professional diagnosis anyway.

User_friendly wrote:So he has an unknown cause knee inflammation? Or maybe they don't want to reveal the cause?. I'm not a doctor but it doesn't seem a very professional diagnosis anyway.

It’s most likely due to arthritis since they keep saying his knee is structurally sound. Lawrence Frank has repeatedly said it’s tricky this time too. I’m guessing Leonard has progressed from acute (sudden and temporary) to chronic (can go on for months/years) inflammation.

Yes, it seems it could be like that. But cartilage damage is structural damage. And talking like that like if was a normal inflammation that you get from a hit or a fall, but goes away with time, is kind of cheating people, IMO.