The past few years — well, the past few decades — have been a rollercoaster for the Los Angeles Clippers. But with Kawhi Leonard and James Harden both healthy, and the Clips finding their groove in the second half of the 2024-25 regular season, Ty Lue's squad seems poised to make a serious run at the 2025 NBA Finals. It won't be an easy ride, that's for sure.
Los Angeles faces one of the toughest tests of the first round of the postseason: facing three-time MVP Nikola Jokic and the 2023 NBA-champion Nuggets at Ball Arena in the mile-high altitude of Denver. The Clippers will have plenty of support from their home crowd at the beautiful Intuit Dome, though, in Games 3 and 4 and then again in Game 6 if necessary. BUY NOW : Get tickets to Clippers 2025 playoff games on StubHub If anyone can flip the script as a series underdog, it's Kawhi Leonard.
Whereas Joker has led one team to the Finals and hoisted a Finals MVP, Kawhi has done so twice for two different teams : San Antonio in 2014 and Toronto in 2019. In both Finals runs, he looked like the best player in the NBA. Now he's got a sidekick in Harden, one of the best pure scorers in league history.
If Leonard leads the Clippers to the franchise's first-ever title, he will be just the fifth player in NBA history to win the Finals with three different teams. If he wins Finals MVP, he will become just the second player ever to win the award with three different teams. The other guy to accomplish that milestone? LeBron James, .
