LOS ANGELES – If your eyes bulged when you heard the news this summer that Kawhi Leonard was signing with the LA Clippers and Paul George was joining him via trade, you weren’t alone. The Boston Celtics were right there with you.
The news took the NBA by storm and nearly broke the Internet on July 5. A tweet from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, which broke the news of George being traded to the Clippers to join Leonard, generated 42,100 retweets and nearly 100,000 likes. Many of the Celtics saw that very message and were stunned by the news.
“Just being a fan of basketball, I was like, ‘Damn, that’s crazy! They’re gonna be really, really tough,’” Brad Wanamaker told Celtics.com Wednesday morning, ahead of Boston’s matchup with the Clippers. “And then with the AD (Anthony Davis) and LeBron (James teaming up on the Lakers) thing, I was just like, ‘LA is gonna be on fire. The NBA is gonna be crazy this season.’”
Jayson Tatum, who just experienced his second NBA offseason, explained that he had a similar reaction to the news.
“After LeBron said he was going to [the Lakers last year], I kinda figured Kawhi would go to the Clippers. But when I figured out Paul George was on the Clippers,” Tatum said as his eyebrows raised and he leaned back for emphasis, “I was completely surprised.”
As was the entire NBA landscape. Leonard joining the Clippers was not a bombshell, but LA’s simultaneous acquisition of George very much was. It turned the Clippers into a powerhouse and decided the league’s balance of power. It also prevented any team in the league from loading up with three or more superstars, which is what stood out most to Celtics guard Marcus Smart.
“It’s just good for the NBA overall,” said Smart, who added that he was excited when he heard the Clippers news. “It’s good for players. It’s good for everybody in this league. There’s not just one team that’s just stacked full of guys, and every game is a competition and you’ve got to play every night.”
Boston will need to do much more than just play tonight if it plans to upend Leonard, George and the Clippers. It may need to play at its highest level of the season thus far.
Tonight, in front of a rowdy home crowd and on national television, Leonard and George may play together for the very first time as Clippers teammates. Injuries have prevented them from doing so thus far in the season.
Leonard has been nursing a left knee issue all season, which has limited him to playing in just nine of LA’s 14 games. Still, he is averaging 26.8 points, 8.9 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game. He been sidelined for each of the Clippers’ last three games.
George, meanwhile, just returned to action Thursday following offseason double-shoulder surgery. He has appeared in three games thus far, all of which were missed by Leonard, and is averaging 29.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.
Leonard is listed as questionable for tonight’s game, while George is slotted into the team’s starting lineup. ESPN reported Wednesday afternoon that Leonard is, in fact, expected to play in the game.
The Celtics addressed the challenge of playing against a fully-healthy Clippers team without having any film to study of Leonard and George playing together on the court.
“It’s tough,” said Tatum, “but that’s the fun thing about the NBA: those tough challenges that you’ve got to adapt to. It’s no secret that those are two of the top 10 guys in the NBA. It should be fun if they both play tonight.”
While discussing the same topic, Wanamaker made sure to note that while the C’s would face a hefty challenge in that scenario, so will LA.
“It’s gonna be tough,” he said, “but we lace our shoes up just like they lace their shoes up. We’re gonna come out, we’re ready for the challenge, and just as we’ve got to play the Clippers, the Clippers gotta play the Celtics.”
Wednesday night is shaping up to feature an electric atmosphere inside the STAPLES Center. Eyes bulged back in July when the news broke that Leonard and George were teaming up, and it appears that tonight, they’ll finally take the court together. Luckily for those who will be watching, LA just so happens to be hosting the top team from the Eastern Conference in the Celtics.
addByline("Marc D'Amico", "Celtics.com", "Marc_DAmico"); addPhoto("https://publish.nba.com/celtics/sites/celtics/files/shotchart.png", "Gordon Hayward's made shot chart against Cleveland", "NBA.com/stats", "hayward");