In Seattle, winning return for Kawhi Leonard against the Blazers

It was the big night of NBA comebacks. After Ben Simmons and Jamal Murray, we found Kawhi Leonard, who had skipped the Clippers’ first preseason game, but was present against Portland.

At the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, the winger was on a par, looking for favorable mismatches against Anfernee Simons to work in his favorite areas of the pitch. He thus completes the match with 11 points at 3/8 shooting, plus 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 16 minutes on the floor.

Opposite, we also found Damian Lillard (16 points at 5/13 in shooting), ready to draw each screen exit.

At his side, Anfernee Simons (9 points at 2/12) struggled, as did rookie Shaedon Sharpe off the bench. But the activity of Josh Hart, starter on the wing, and Jerami Grant is interesting, even if the former Piston sometimes wanted to do too much, looking for complicated passes that were easily intercepted.

For the Clippers, Norman Powell was quickly countered by Jerami Grant, which set the tone of his match (3 points at 1/11) and it was therefore Brandon Boston Jr and Amir Coffey who made the difference in the last quarter, with a very active Moussa Diabaté (6 points, 11 rebounds) to scrape the crumbs in the paint.