{"id":617335,"date":"2026-02-22T07:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/617335\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:43:12","slug":"clippers-notes-lopez-leonard-collins-garland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/617335\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers Notes: Lopez, Leonard, Collins, Garland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brook Lopez<\/a> joined the Clippers to serve as a veteran backup to Ivica Zubac<\/a>, but now it looks like he\u2019ll be the starting center for the rest of the season, Janis Carr of The Orange County Register<\/a> writes in a subscriber-only story. Lopez started a few games after Zubac hurt his ankle in December, but he also spent time out of the rotation, with rookie Yanic Konan Niederhauser<\/a> as the first center off the bench. Everything changed when Zubac was dealt to Indiana at the deadline, and L.A. will be counting heavily on Lopez in its bid to reach the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been about staying ready for me,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cObviously, my goal is to help my team win by whatever means possible, so on a nightly basis, whatever\u2019s required of me, I\u2019m going to go out there and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lopez, 37, was a starter throughout his career before signing with the Clippers last summer, so he\u2019s ready for a heavy workload. He had 16 points and 10 rebounds in Friday\u2019s loss to the Lakers, and the offense ran through him after Kawhi Leonard<\/a> left the game with stiffness in his left ankle and Bennedict Mathurin<\/a> fouled out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m comfortable in a lot of different roles,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cIt\u2019s something I got to do for a good decade in my career, so I\u2019m confident doing that. Again, whatever\u2019s required of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more on the Clippers:<\/p>\n

Leonard, who\u2019s listed as questionable for Sunday\u2019s game against Orlando, drew high praise from long-time rival LeBron James<\/a> after the game, Carr adds. James said that even with Leonard\u2019s lengthy injury history, he\u2019s one of the league\u2019s best players. \u201cThere\u2019s things you can\u2019t control. You only can control the controllables and the things that he\u2019s been controlling is how he comes back and how (much) perseverance he (has) every single time,\u201d James said. \u201cThat guy\u2019s awesome. I swear, I have nothing but great things to say about Kawhi and the type of basketball he\u2019s been playing over the last couple months. I mean, he is who he is for a reason, so I\u2019m not surprised by it.\u201d
\nJohn Collins<\/a> will be held out of Sunday\u2019s contest after suffering a head laceration and neck soreness against the Lakers, per Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link<\/a>). Murray notes that there\u2019s no indication of a concussion in the injury report.
\nDarius Garland<\/a> tells Marc J. Spears of Andscape<\/a> that he knew a trade out of Cleveland was imminent, and he blames a recurring toe issue that limited him to 26 games this season. \u201cIt was going to happen regardless, either at the (trade) deadline or this summer. (My agent) Rich (Paul) had that conversation with me last summer,\u201d Garland said. \u201cBut yeah, the toe definitely had a factor in it. They didn\u2019t know if I was going to be healthy for this season, which I will be. But they thought that James (Harden)<\/a>\u00a0had something that I didn\u2019t, I believe. He has experience in playoffs and All-Star numbers still to this day, even though he wasn\u2019t an All-Star this year. But yeah, they want to win right now. They have a group, too. And I guess I really wasn\u2019t part of the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brook Lopez joined the Clippers to serve as a veteran backup to Ivica Zubac, but now it looks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,369,559,791,6971,529,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-617335","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-brook-lopez","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-darius-garland","12":"tag-john-collins","13":"tag-kawhi-leonard","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-la-clippers","16":"tag-laclippers","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangelesclippers","21":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116113165920027004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617335","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=617335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}