Paul George was sick.
His co-star was hurt.
His team had lost four consecutive games, and sitting at his locker Oct. 30, George and the Clippers looked run down just six games into a season they'd hoped would be a joyride.
"It starts with me," George said. "I got to get better, I got to do better."
If three-week-old seasons can have turning points, that qualifies. George kicked the sickness and as he began to be able to breathe, his team was able to take its first deep breath while authoring a moderate turnaround by going 3-1 entering Monday. George averaged 32.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.8 assists and 2.3 steals in that span to earn the Western Conference's player of the week honors.
"Once I was able to really just get my body loose and start to breathe a little bit better, I was able to just transfer everything over to playing well and being aggressive and having an attack mentality," George said Sunday after scoring 34 points in a loss to Utah. "So that was really just the change that I made. It was just getting back healthy."
George continued to deliver Monday at Crypto.com Arena, pouring in 18 first-half points against Cleveland, before finishing with 26 to lead the Clippers to a 119-117 win.
The Clippers, after 10 games, are still difficult to classify. A contender experiencing growing pains? A team whose inability to stay healthy enough to develop rhythm will ultimately haunt it come spring's postseason? Their lineups, rotations and circumstances have been nothing as they expected leaving training camp with a fully healthy roster, and coach Tyronn Lue, who typically makes lineup changes after a 10-game sample size, isn't making broad alterations anytime soon with such an unstable data set to analyze.
But even before Kawhi Leonard experienced stiffness in his right knee in late October, leaving him sidelined for the past eight games and with no timetable for a return publicly offered by the team, Lue had asked George to play as though he was the No. 1 scoring option, Leonard or not. And if there has been one takeaway that feels strong despite the uncertainty of their first three weeks, it is that George has appeared able to be the scorer the Clippers consistently need.
George blew through the paint for a first-half dunk with the speed that was missing while he was sick. After halftime, George backpedaled downcourt after making his fifth three-pointer, on his sixth attempt, while looking into the first-row courtside seats until he curled his backward path into a timeout huddle.
The most optimistic reading of Monday's performance was that for stretches of the second consecutive game, George was not alone in carrying the Clippers' 29th-ranked offense, which scored in efficient bunches during a first quarter it finished with eight three-pointers. For the first time in Lue's three seasons as coach he has had a healthy Marcus Morris Sr. at his disposal since the start of training camp, and Morris entered averaging 14.8 points while making 60% of his shots inside the arc — a figure that is a full 10 percentage points higher than his career high, set four years ago — and 36% beyond it.
Slowed by a balky knee each of the past two seasons — including missing a full month to start last season after playing healthy only a handful of games, a cautious approach that is worth remembering as a comparison for how the team has handled Leonard's early season return to play — Morris entered training camp having lost around a dozen pounds and has often proved to be the Clippers' first option in the first quarter.
"With us struggling to score the basketball, he has been one of the guys that's been shooting the ball well and be able to post him a little bit to slow the game down," Lue said.
There was also Reggie Jackson on Monday, who started despite suffering a contusion of his left thigh the previous night, and despite a pair of early turnovers that began Cleveland fast breaks, took in-rhythm shots, shooting better than 50% for much of the night.
Backup guard Luke Kennard, who had not played since Friday's first quarter in San Antonio after feeling what was described only as chest discomfort, wasn't limited by a minutes restriction in his return Monday but ultimately played only 13 minutes. The team learned he would be available after shootaround and opted not to change the starting lineup it had already used during the walk-through, which included Terance Mann at shooting guard instead of Kennard. Lue said matchups will dictate how he fills the starting two-guard role — until Kawhi Leonard is healthy enough to take back the job — and Cleveland's backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland fit the criteria for Mann's defensive versatility.
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