{"id":55781,"date":"2025-05-25T14:54:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T14:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/55781\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T14:54:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T14:54:29","slug":"clippers-prepare-for-mondays-game-under-difficult-circumstances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/55781\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers prepare for Monday’s game under difficult circumstances"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Clippers forward Nicolas Batum got word that his family would need to evacuate their Tarzana home because the Palisades fire had shifted that direction. Batum was with the Clippers<\/a> in Denver for a game that night, but had been constantly checking his phone and talking to his wife and two children.<\/p>\n

Playing the Nuggets was the last thing on his mind at the time. He only thought about the safety of his family and those affected by the devastating fires across Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to come home,\u201d Batum said after practice Sunday. \u201cBut I was told my family was going to be OK. For now, we\u2019re fortunate to be safe. … I hope it will stay like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

His teammate, Kawhi Leonard<\/a>, on the other hand, returned to his Pacific Palisades home Tuesday to be with his family.<\/p>\n

Since so many people lost their homes in the Pacific Palisades area, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue<\/a> was asked if there was any update on Leonard\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to talk to him about that,\u201d Lue said.<\/p>\n

Lue did say that Leonard \u201chas been good. Tough situation for him, the things he got to go through with his family and his house situation. We\u2019re here to support him, not only Kawhi but anybody in the community that we need to help. We will help and support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard was at practice Sunday, but he was not one of the players the Clippers made available during media access.<\/p>\n

Lue said other members of the Clippers\u2019 support staff and organization were affected by the fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Kawhi had left the team for that [Denver] game to check on his situation,\u201d teammate Terance Mann said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t really hear from him. So, it\u2019s good to see that him and his family are doing good.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the NBA postponed the Clippers game against Charlotte<\/a> on Saturday night because of the wildfires, L.A. is still scheduled to face the Miami Heat on Monday night at the Intuit Dome.<\/p>\n

Lue said it was \u201cabove my pay grade\u201d on whether or not the Clippers should play the game against the Heat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the NBA, they have a good handle on things, what\u2019s going on and what we need to do,\u201d Lue said. \u201cSo, when they make a decision, we\u2019re all in. They know we are going through a tough time right now, the state of California. They understand that, and so, hopefully we can bring some kind of joy when the game comes back tomorrow, some togetherness, try to put some smiles on people\u2019s faces in tough times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clippers, who had lost four of their last five games, haven\u2019t played since Wednesday in Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end, we\u2019re pros,\u201d Batum said. \u201cWe have a game to play. We have to win so we have to get back to it. We had two great practices the last two days. Basketball-side, we lost four of the last five so we need a win tomorrow. We got a stretch at home that we need to take care of so it\u2019s going to be a big one against Miami tomorrow so we got to focus on that and try to win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lue said the Clippers plan on doing their part to help the community.<\/p>\n

Mann said he will do his part as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to give a lot of clothes, some money, shoes, just whatever I can,\u201d Mann said. \u201cWhatever people need help with, I\u2019m going to look to do right now. I actually just texted my people. They are going to meet, we\u2019re going to go to one of my storage units, grab a bunch of stuff and go somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 5 a.m. Wednesday, Clippers forward Nicolas Batum got word that his family would need to evacuate their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,301,4169,142,529,4034,192,4032,14310,851,251,135,1651,4033,4031,3154,14309,2123,6,1522,5449,14308,1141],"class_list":{"0":"post-55781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-denver","11":"tag-family","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-kawhi-leonard","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-clippers","16":"tag-laclippers","17":"tag-last-thing","18":"tag-leonard","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","21":"tag-los-angeles-times","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-losangelesclippers","24":"tag-lue","25":"tag-many-people","26":"tag-monday","27":"tag-nba","28":"tag-nicolas-batum","29":"tag-night","30":"tag-tarzana-home","31":"tag-time"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114569050173826940","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55781","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=55781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}