INGLEWOOD — Three minutes before tipoff in Denver, Clippers veteran Nicolas Batum finally put down his phone. The Clippers had a game to play against the Nuggets on Wednesday as devastating wildfires were raging back home in Los Angeles.
He was back on his phone at halftime, checking on his wife and child, who reside in Simi Valley.
“I never do that, but I checked at halftime if my wife and kid were OK,” Batum said Sunday. “But that was a weird timing.”
The Clippers resume playing basketball Monday against the Miami Heat at the Intuit Dome as the fires, which began Tuesday, continue to burn in Pacific Palisades, Altadena and Sylmar, two days after having Saturday’s game against the Charlotte Hornets postponed.
“At the end of the day we are pros,” Batum said. “We have a game to play. We have a game to win, so we’ve got to get back to it. We got two great practices here the last two days. So, I mean, on the basketball side, we lost four of the last five, so we need to win tomorrow. We got stretches at home that we got to take care of. So, it’s going to be a big one against Miami tomorrow.”
Coach Tyronn Lue called the past couple days a “tough time for all of us.” Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, who has a house in Pacific Palisades, left the team in Denver to attend to his family, which had been evacuated.
The Clippers did not make Leonard available after Sunday’s practice.
“We had no clue the seriousness of what was going on. I know Kawhi had left the team for that game to check on his situation, but we didn’t really hear from him,” Terance Mann said. “So, it’s good to see that he and his family are doing good.”
Other staff members had to evacuate the past several days as well.
“All the families involved, friends, neighbors, it’s been tough just dealing with every single day, just hearing about the people that’s dealing with things — getting evacuated, losing their houses,” Lue said.
“So, we’ve just been trying to practice these last couple of days, just trying to clear our mind as much as we can, but we know it’s a tough situation, tough moments for a lot of guys involved and we are just trying to fight through it the best way we can.”
And the way to do that is to play basketball. The Clippers (20-17) are looking to get back on track after losing four of their past five games. The Heat (20-17) come into Los Angeles having won their past three games.
“This is where we’ve come to kind of get away from life in general,” Mann said. “So, it’s been a good outlet to be able to come out here, be with your team, and just play basketball and do something that you loved your whole life and kind of clear your mind. So that’s kind of what we use it as.”
By getting back on the court, the Clippers hope to put their unsightly 126-103 loss to the Nuggets and the anxiety caused by the fires behind them.
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“Yeah, that game in Denver was weird all day though,” Batum said. “I was on the phone with my family all day. I didn’t sleep that night, either. You don’t know what’s going on, if the fire is going to go to your place.”
“Our mindset in my mind was not in the game all day.”
Mann said while playing basketball will ease the angst of the fires, it won’t erase the ongoing concern.
“I mean, people are still barely getting sleep. Some guys lost power. Some guys got family stuff to figure out. Some people’s kids’ schools burned down. There’s a lot going on. So, it’s bigger than basketball right now. Way bigger than basketball,” Mann said.