{"id":616011,"date":"2026-02-21T15:47:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/616011\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T15:47:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T15:47:57","slug":"clippers-star-kawhi-leonard-ankle-soreness-exits-vs-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/616011\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers star Kawhi Leonard (ankle soreness) exits vs. Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:Field Level Media;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fieldlevelmedia.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"Field Level Media\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"312\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bc126ea0-acd9-11ef-adff-76a94cf3e57a.png\"\/><\/a>Sat, February 21, 2026 at 6:57 AM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1099\" height=\"733\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4ef3d8d1396ec8ffcb34c3ee44af9811.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Feb 19, 2026; Inglewood, California, USA; LA Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (2) dribbles the ball against Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) in the second half at Intuit Dome. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p> (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles Clippers All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard departed his team&#8217;s 125-122 road loss against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday with 5:10 remaining while dealing with left ankle soreness, the team announced.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard finished with 31 points for his 35th consecutive game with at least 20 points.<\/p>\n<p>Clippers coach Tyronn Lue didn&#8217;t sound overly concerned about the injury postgame.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kawhi&#8217;s been dealing with some left ankle soreness, so it got stiff on him so we got him out,&#8221; Lue said.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard, who has dealt with chronic knee issues since joining the Clippers to start the 2019-20 season, missed 10 games earlier this season with ankle and foot injuries.<\/p>\n<p>A seven-time All-Star, Leonard entered Friday averaging a career-high 27.8 points along with 6.4 rebounds in 42 games this season. In 14 NBA seasons, the two-time NBA champion has averaged 20.5 points with 6.4 rebounds in 775 games (746 starts).<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sat, February 21, 2026 at 6:57 AM UTC Feb 19, 2026; Inglewood, California, USA; LA Clippers forward Kawhi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[57205,7,559,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,150,4033,4031,6,1355],"class_list":{"0":"post-616011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-ankle-soreness","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-kawhi-leonard","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-clippers","14":"tag-laclippers","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","17":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangelesclippers","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-tyronn-lue"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116109411414249568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616011","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=616011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}