HOUSTON — Kawhi Leonard will play against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday in the first of a back-to-back set while Paul George is expected to make his LA Clippers debut on Thursday at New Orleans.
Clippers head coach Doc Rivers ruled George out before the game against the Rockets but said that the All-Star swingman probably will play his first game this season against the Pelicans barring something unexpected.
“Maybe tomorrow or whenever we play after that,” Rivers said of George, who is making his way back after having offseason surgeries on both of his shoulders.
Rivers said Leonard was ready to go against the Rockets but did not commit to the All-Star’s status against New Orleans. In the Clippers’ two previous back-to-back set of games, Leonard sat out the first game each time due to load management for a patella tendon injury in his left knee. This is the first back-to-back set in which Leonard is playing in the first game.
Rivers admits that it has been more challenging than expected not only trying to incorporate two new stars on the team but adjusting to not having one for the first 11 games of the season and having the other sit twice already.
“Honestly it has probably been harder than we thought because we are still in the process of getting Kawhi right 100 percent and then you don’t have Paul at all,” Rivers said. “Then you have a select few practices and you have to make a choice every practice, do you put Paul in the lineup even though he’s not playing but then you got to play tomorrow with another group or do you put Paul in the second group and we have chosen the second group, even the third group at times. I don’t think he’s yet to play even one minute with the starting lineup yet. It’s just going to take time.”
Rivers has been running three to four plays designed strictly for George in practice every day despite not having George available in games in preparation.
“We’ll figure it out,” Rivers said. “It will take time, especially late-game stuff, ATO stuff, but you’ll take it. You’ll just take the talent. You know no matter what you can run a play for Paul George. No matter what you can run something for Kawhi. What I don’t know is the rotations, the lineups that we can throw out on the floor.”
“They are similar in the way they play,” Rivers added. “Paul comes off of more pin downs and screens which actually adds to your offense because guys that do that create an offense in itself. JJ Redick, we used him running around and [also] Ray Allen [in Boston]. But it also created another offense for everyone else because of that and Paul George can do that as well.”
George, who had surgery in May to repair a partially torn tendon in his right shoulder and another procedure to repair a partial tear of his left labrum a month later, went through his first full live practice last Saturday.
“My shoulders haven’t been this good in a long time,” George told ESPN in early October during Clippers training camp. “I shot the ball pretty well last season, so I’m excited for what’s to come.”