Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard Leaves Arena During Game With Back Injury

Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard hurt his back last night (3/12) against the Minnesota Timberwolves and left Crypto.com Arena, per NBA reporter Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. 

The Clippers said Leonard was suffering from thoracic spasms. According to Youngmisuk, Leonard went home to rest rather than sit in discomfort at the arena.

“Wasn’t sure if he was going to go this morning,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said after the game. “But he came to shootaround, got some treatment, did what he had to do and tried to get on the court and played today. It just didn’t loosen up for him.”

Without Leonard, the Clippers lost to the Timberwolves by a final score of 118-100. LAC blew a 22-point lead. 

“Just being mentally tough,” Lue said of what went wrong for the Clippers. “They’re a good team without KAT. They are going to make runs, and we can’t drop our heads and feel sorry for ourselves. … But just being mentally tougher when things are not going good. There’s a lot of things we didn’t do great.

“They played tougher than we did, for sure. No doubt pisses me off when it comes to that. Just being mentally tougher when stuff gets hard. You got to get tougher. We can talk about schemes, we can talk about a lot of other things, but we just got to be tougher mentally, and physically got to be better.”

Leonard is averaging 23.7 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists this season while shooting 52.3% from the field, 42.6% from beyond the arc and 88.9% from the free-throw line. 

The Clippers are in fourth place in the Western Conference standings with a record of 41-23. The franchise has never reached the NBA Finals. 

It’s unknown if Leonard will travel with the Clippers on the team’s upcoming road trip.