according to the Associated Press<\/a>, at least 100,000 residents in the Los Angeles area were under evacuation orders as attempts to contain three separate wildfires continued, from the Pacific Palisades inland to Pasadena.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s been tough,\u201d the 47-year-old coach said. \u201cSome people close to us, they were affected by it, but also our friends, families and neighbors who (are) all going through the same thing. Very tough day on homeowners, business owners, and so hopefully we can get control on the fires as soon as we can. But our hearts and prayers go out to everyone who\u2019s involved. \u2026 It\u2019s tough, because life is bigger than basketball, and the well-being of your friends, families and neighbors, that comes first.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nuggets also have multiple players who grew up or have homes in Southern California, including DeAndre Jordan, Russell Westbrook and Peyton Watson. Coach Michael Malone said before the game that he had spoken with Westbrook, whose home was not in the path of the fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for those that are \u2014 Kawhi, his family and the thousands of other people back there \u2014 you just think about them during a very tough time,\u201d Malone said.<\/p>\n
Westbrook\u2019s family is still based in Los Angeles while he\u2019s under contract with the Nuggets. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles, played college basketball at UCLA and was on both the Lakers and Clippers before signing with Denver.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, personally, it\u2019s fine. Family is safe. But unfortunately, people that I know, close friends and family have lost their homes and everything,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the last couple days, obviously, have been just praying so much, for not just the people I know but for everyone. Being from L.A. and never seeing anything like this before, not being able to do nothing is really difficult. Just grateful for all the first responders, all the firefighters, everyone who\u2019s helping, trying to help. I\u2019m not even sure what\u2019s happening right now. My wife just texted me about school being closed again. \u2026 I know it\u2019s gonna be a tough rebuild, but L.A. is very strong, and we can stick together and make something happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: January 8, 2025 at 6:52 PM MST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As wildfires raged in the Los Angeles area on Wednesday, the Clippers were in Denver, attempting to focus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[2097,2276,7,160,559,765,761,301,187,766,1035,529,4034,192,4032,165,251,135,4033,4031,4231,252,6,302,1146,254,66,15480],"class_list":{"0":"post-233608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-associated-press","9":"tag-ball-arena","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-clippers","13":"tag-colorado","14":"tag-deandre-jordan","15":"tag-denver","16":"tag-denver-nuggets","17":"tag-front-range","18":"tag-injury","19":"tag-kawhi-leonard","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-la-clippers","22":"tag-laclippers","23":"tag-latest-headlines","24":"tag-los-angeles","25":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","26":"tag-losangeles","27":"tag-losangelesclippers","28":"tag-michael-malone","29":"tag-more-nuggets-news","30":"tag-nba","31":"tag-nuggets","32":"tag-peyton-watson","33":"tag-russell-westbrook","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-wildfires"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115036045090149925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}