Google News Kawhi Leonard after season-best performance: Tonight doesn't matter, playoffs do
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Kawhi Leonard underlined that he is focused on being at his best come playoff time after enjoying the performance of his season against the Boston Celtics. On Monday night, Leonard scored 25 points and also had nine rebounds and six assists in a 113-93 win over the Celtics.
Leonard, who missed the entire last season and has missed a good number of games this season, was asked afterward if this performance was an indication of where he is in his return. "I don't want to be here tonight. I'm focusing on the end of the year.
Playoff basketball. Doesn't matter about tonight," Leonard said, per ESPN.
Paul George praises Leonard
George also had a great for the Clippers as he scored a game-high 26 points and also had six rebounds in 35 minutes on the floor.
Leonard, who is still on a minute restriction, played for 29 minutes. "It's the same Kawhi. He's just playing more, he's getting more reps. More than anything, he's just more aware of his minutes and being on a minute restriction that with the minutes that he does have, he's going to make them count," George said of Leonard.
The Celtics, who have the best record in the NBA, are led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. But the Clippers found a way to stop the Celtics' star duo. Brown scored 21 points, while Tatum had 20 points - those numbers were below their season points average.
"We did a great job pretty much across the whole board. We got great shots. We shared the ball, we took care of the ball, we played defense. I thought our help side, our activity defensively was great. Of course you can nitpick and probably clean up a lot of possessions, but when you look at this game overall, we did pretty much everything that we wanted to do from a game-plan standpoint," George explained.