How Kawhi Leonard’s return felt at Intuit Dome, and how he resets the LA Clippers

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Covering a Kawhi Leonard comeback has become a formulaic process. Unfortunately, there have been so many instances of Leonard returning to play after an extended layoff that the guarded excitement is something few even have to speak of out loud. It’s just a generally understood feeling.

Longtime LA Clippers public address announcer Eric Smith said he wouldn’t be able to believe that Leonard was truly back Saturday night against the visiting Atlanta Hawks “until I was saying his name.” Other members of the Clippers game staff felt positive energy, but also hedged in case Leonard wasn’t quite ready.

Two hours before gametime, keen observers of Leonard’s longstanding pregame routine waited for the two-time NBA Finals MVP’s arrival onto the Intuit Dome floor. No one had ever seen Leonard get ready for a game at this building. Ten minutes passed — would he come out? After all, the Clippers ruled Leonard out for Saturday’s game Friday evening, only to later upgrade Leonard’s status to questionable 3.5 hours later.

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“Nothing changed. He was in,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue went on to say. “I didn’t want to hear from all these guys, so I tried to protect myself for as long as I could …”

All jokes aside, the Clippers took the long road with Leonard’s return from right knee inflammation. The medical staff — led by longtime trainer Jasen Powell, president of performance health and wellness Maggie Bryant and assistant coach/vice president of player performance Todd Wright — worked with Leonard for months to strengthen a right knee that has been operated on multiple times since Leonard’s career was interrupted in the 2021 postseason by a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament.

The Clippers front office reshaped the team, adding and/or re-acquiring players who could lead defensively, such as Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones Jr. and Nicolas Batum. The coaching staff was bolstered by the addition of former NBA head coach Jeff Van Gundy, the new de facto defensive coordinator, while Lue turned his offense without Leonard or the departed Paul George over to “The System” James Harden, “Addition-by-Subtraction” Norman Powell and center Ivica Zubac, the longest-tenured player on the team.

The efforts that the Clippers put in with Leonard rehabbing but also with the basketball team exceeding external expectations without Leonard gave way to the moment that fans had been waiting on for months: Leonard starting a game for the Clippers at Intuit Dome for the first time, and playing for a team that is relevant in the Western Conference. After beating the Hawks, 131-105, the Clippers are seventh in the Western Conference at 20-15, only three losses behind the second-place Houston Rockets.

“They’ve been doing well all year,” Leonard said of his team after finishing with 12 points in 19:25, establishing a playing restriction of 20 minutes.

“Of course he was on a minute restriction, but definitely from what we’ve seen, or what we got to see thus far, was great,” Jones said of Leonard. “Even times he’s been at practice, he’s been great. He’s been going at it, trying to get himself back to full form. That’s all we can ask for, and we love it.”

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Leonard’s season debut did not come until 25 days after he first returned to practice last month. But Leonard’s performances behind the scenes impressed his teammates, some of whom were also working to return to health and form.

Kobe Brown, their 2023 first-round pick, was sidelined for most of December with a back injury. Brown eventually was healthy enough to return to the Stay Ready crew that Leonard was tasked with working with as part of his return to play protocol. Brown recalled how Leonard made it clear that he “hadn’t lost it at all.”

“There was a spurt when we were playing with the G League team; there was a spurt where he was hitting buckets back-to-back,” Brown said. “Defenders were draped all over him. Spin fades, like shooting rising up. You know how it doesn’t matter how close you are to him — he just wasn’t missing. I was like, yeah, you just got to tip your hat to stuff like that. He’s a really good player.”

I asked Brown if Leonard was silent the whole time he was slaying defenders.

“Nah. He wasn’t saying a word. Not a word,” Brown said. “Quiet assassin.”

Leonard came back and operated like a role player, almost in the Jones role — after all, it was Jones who Leonard replaced in the starting lineup next to Harden, Powell, Zubac and Dunn; although Lue said that Dunn and Jones will likely rotate as starters. Lue wanted Dunn as an extra ballhandler against a Hawks defense that is top five in opponent turnover percentage.

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Leonard did not have a true post up in his debut. His lone isolation possession was a quick shot to avoid a double team, and he finished only two plays as a ballhandler in pick-and-roll. He spent a lot of the game Saturday running to the corners as Harden operated. But Leonard’s feel for the game was strong. There was a play in the first quarter where he cut into the paint as Zubac posted up. Leonard then reversed the ball back to the corner, where Powell was able to drive a Dyson Daniels closeout and finish with an easy layup.

That’s the kind of play that Lue envisioned for a player like Powell with Leonard coming back. Something that makes the game easier for the entire team.

“Last six, seven, eight games, they’ve been blitzing Norm, trying to get the ball out of his hands,” Lue said pregame of how teams have been defending Powell. “Now, not having the best or second best defender on him, now he’s going to have the third best defender on him. So, that will be a little easier for him. And then, we know that Kawhi is going to command double teams. So, the swing-swings, the wide-open Norm for 3s, I think he’s third in the league in closeout situations at 1.46 points per possession. So, be able to get closeout opportunities, and I think he’ll flourish even more.”

On Saturday night, the Clippers also welcomed back Terance Mann, who had surgery last month to repair a fractured finger on his left hand. Mann explained how he and Leonard had “totally different schedules … he was playing 5-on-5, I couldn’t do anything.” But Mann noticed how ready Leonard was leading up to Saturday night.

“His jump shot, he rarely missed during rehab,” Mann said of Leonard after Saturday night’s game. “You seen today, his catch-and-shoot 3s, he rarely missed. So, it’s good to see that 3-ball for him, and everything else will come naturally to him. It’s good to see where he’s at mentally with his jump shot.”

Leonard’s very first shot was a 3-pointer from the left wing from Harden. That’s no small feat. When Leonard tried to play in Game 2 of the Western Conference quarterfinals against the Dallas Mavericks in April, he missed all five of his 3s. In Game 3, Leonard did not even attempt a 3-pointer. He made his first 3 3s Saturday night, and they were the first 3s he had made in a game since the last day of March 2024.

Leonard did have one basket inside the arc where he was able to get into the paint and finish. Overall, he made only 4 of 11 field goal attempts, despite making 3 of 5 3s.

“I took the shots that I got,” Leonard said afterwards. “We’re still easing me into the game. We’re on nobody’s, I guess, timetable. Anybody watching, that wants me to score 20 or 30 points or be aggressive, we are not on no one’s time frame. We know what’s ahead of us, and we have to keep building in the right direction. So, we facing it like it was a preseason game tonight. And we’ll keep moving the same way until I’m able to build up my minutes.”

Leonard’s defensive impact was still solid. The Hawks rarely even tested him. There was a play in the first half where Daniels half-heartedly tried to isolate Leonard, then wound up missing everything on a 3-point attempt:

Even though Leonard is new to Van Gundy’s defensive schemes, he doesn’t feel that he is out of place in it at all.

“It’s really not an adjustment for me,” Leonard said of being coached by Van Gundy defensively. “He’s locked in. He watches a lot of film. He lets you know he watches a lot of film. He tells you, ‘Nobody watches this s— more than me.’ When you hear a coach say that, it gives you confidence as a player that you know what he’s talking about when you step on that floor.”

Leonard is a two-time Defensive Player of the Year winner, and his instincts for steals are still present. There was a play where Hawks forward De’Andre Hunter was supposed to come off of a direct handoff from Hawks center Clint Capela. But Leonard completely blew the play up to start a fast break.

“As a basketball player, I was definitely happy to see him,” Hunter said after competing against Leonard for the first time since March 2024. “I know he gets a lot of criticism, undeservedly. People who don’t understand, like, people get injured. Would you rather him come back early and get hurt again, or take his time and be healthy? So, I was just more so happy to see him back — obviously, not against us.”

Leonard’s return is just the middle of a five-step process. He got through step one last month when he practiced. Saturday night marked step two. Now, Leonard has to string games together — his preseason, his training camp. Next month, Leonard ideally steps up and is able to be the version of himself that plays at an all-league level. And what Leonard and the Clippers organization want to see is Leonard complete a postseason series.

“The whole season, we’ve had to fight and win without him,” Brown said of Leonard. “But we started to see him ramp up more and more. We saw him every day beforehand, but you started to notice the ramp up. You know he’s getting to that point. When he started playing fives and playing in practice, we knew it was close. So, we were just happy for him, happy that he took his time and he got back healthy … he looks like he’s healthy. It was just good. He’s a good dude. He stays in and around talking to people. He wasn’t distant during the process. It was a good thing to see him back.”

It’s all in due time for Leonard. But for now, he has everything in perspective, and he knows that he can play still. That part is easy.

“It was nothing hard about playing tonight,” Leonard says. “We did the right steps to get me to this point. Playing basketball is the easy part of it. This is what I love to do. The hard part is not playing, and having to rehab and not competing with my teammates.”

(Photo: Harry How/Getty Images)