Kawhi: 'Nothing hard about' return from extended absence

Kawhi Leonard appeared in his first game of the season in Saturday's 131-105 victory over the Atlanta Hawks, and the Los Angeles Clippers forward says playing for the first time in 253 days was the "easy part."

"[There] was nothing hard about playing tonight," Leonard told reporters, according to ESPN's Baxter Holmes.

The two-time NBA Finals MVP posted 12 points in 19 minutes after missing the opening 34 games of the campaign and the preseason because of inflammation in his surgically repaired right knee.

Leonard last played in Game 3 of the first-round playoff series versus the Dallas Mavericks in April.

"We did the right steps to get me to this point, and playing basketball was the easy part of it. This is what I love to do. The hard part is not playing and having to rehab and not competing with my teammates," Leonard added.

Leonard was 4-of-11 from the floor and 3-of-5 from deep along with three assists, a rebound, and a steal. Norm Powell's 20 points led the Clippers, who had eight players score in double figures.

"I took the shots that I got," Leonard said. "We're still easing me into the game. We're on nobody's, I guess, timetable. Anybody watching that wants me to score 20, 30 points or be aggressive, we are not on no one's time frame."

The 33-year-old Los Angeles native received a warm reception in his first game at the Clippers' $2-billion Intuit Dome. Leonard played just 3:36 in the second half as coach Ty Lue adhered to a minutes restriction.

"You see with his presence on the floor, it makes it a lot easier for everybody else," Lue told Holmes. "And so it was good to have him. Now he's got to continue to keep building off of it."

Lue continued, "He's cleared to play. Just like I said, we're treating this as a preseason for him so he gets his legs up under him. Make sure to come out of the game tonight feeling good. And our goal is just to keep progressing every game, and so tonight was a good start."

Leonard's knee injury was the latest in a string of setbacks since he joined the Clippers as a free agent in July 2019 after guiding the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title.

He has appeared in 257 regular-season and playoff games and missed 210 contests, according to ESPN. Leonard was sidelined because of a partially torn ACL in his right knee suffered in Game 4 of the 2021 Western Conference semifinals against the Utah Jazz. That was followed by a torn meniscus in the same knee sustained in the 2023 first-round playoff series versus the Phoenix Suns.