The Los Angeles Clippers may not have the best record in the Western Conference but they’re perhaps the biggest favorite to win it all this season, even ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers or Milwaukee Bucks.
The Clippers hung on to a 44-20 record (2nd in the West) despite Kawhi Leonard sitting out back-to-back games and Paul George also spending some time on the shelf with injuries.
So, when George was asked about the Clippers’ chances to win the NBA Championship this season, he claimed that the hiatus was actually great for them because it allowed the team to get back at full strength for the first time in the season:
“For this team, man, I think our aspirations, again, this time off gave us what we needed. We had some guys that was banged up, nagging injuries. The more time gave us more time for us to aid those injuries and get back to 100, so this time has fared well with the limited amount of practice and practice time that we’ve been given already. That didn’t really hurt us, I think it didn’t bother us in the regular season, so I don’t think that time off is going to bother us now. Again, all I think it did was help with healing our bodies and just getting us physically ready for this last stretch,” the forward said.
The Clippers barely practiced with their whole squad this year and they were still able to develop an impressive rapport on the court, so now that they’ll have more time to bond and mesh, they’ll be even scarier.
As for George, he’ll finally be able to go through full practices after his shoulder injury is now fully healed. In fact, he even admitted to being insecure during the first stretch of the season:
“Honestly, I had insecurities throughout the season. The whole season, all the way up until maybe a month or two ago, I had to always do shoulder rehab stuff. Just so much went into stuff I had to do before I actually took a foot on the floor. Now I feel great again. Just confident in that, feeling back to myself again,” George concluded.
George was averaging 21.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 3.2 three-pointers, and 1.3 steals per game on 43/39/88 shooting in just 29.1 minutes per game before the suspension so those numbers should only trend up in the playoffs. Don’t sleep on the Clippers.
