LA Clippers coach Doc Rivers says he'll be cautious with player health as the team approaches the NBA Playoffs.
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00:00 LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers won't take any chances of player health once the NBA season resumes later this month.
00:06 On a conference call with the Porters on Monday afternoon, Rivers said that while Kawhi Leonard is healthy right now,
00:10 the team plans to be as cautious as possible with his and others health
00:14 leading up to the beginning of the NBA playoffs, saying,
00:17 "Kawhi is healthy for the most part.
00:19 That still doesn't mean that we don't want to maintain him and get him through the first eight games and get away with the playoffs.
00:23 We want to be smart about this. Not just for Kawhi, it's with everybody."
00:27 Based on this alone, it seems safe to say that Leonard and potentially other players will have some sort of injury/load management procedure during scrimmage and seeding games
00:35 once the NBA restart begins.
00:37 That's perfectly reasonable, too. I mean, not every one of these scrimmage games or eight seeding games will be meaningful for teams,
00:42 and there's no reason it's good players' health in any of those games,
00:45 especially since fans won't be able to be attendance on top of that. As far as when Leonard can miss a game or two,
00:50 the Clippers will play the Brooklyn Nets on the second leg of a back-to-back in the end of their seeding game schedule,
00:55 given the state of Brooklyn's roster at the moment and the fact Clippers could very well be locked into a playoff seed at that point,
01:00 it almost seems like a guarantee that Leonard will miss that matchup.
01:03 That said, we shouldn't expect Leonard to be the only Clippers player to miss a few games, as LA prepares to embark on a postseason run.
01:09 Other meaningful players like Paul George, Patrick Beverly, and Lou Williams could all be arrested if the situation calls for it.
01:14 The end goal is to have a fully healthy roster for the playoffs, and since the Clippers have only had that happen a couple times this season,
01:20 it's difficult to question the strategy.
01:22 The Clippers will play their first scrimmage game against the Orlando Magic on July 22nd,
01:26 and kick off the NBA restart with a fourth and final meeting with Los Angeles Lakers on July 30th.