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Kobe Sanders scored a career-high 20 points and had seven rebounds in 36 minutes on Monday.<\/p>\n
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Kobe Sanders found out just before gametime that he\u2019d starting for the Los Angeles Clippers against Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n
With James Harden a late scratch because of shoulder stiffness, it would be up to Sanders and fellow guard Kris Dunn to contain Curry.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t his first start of the season, but he made it his best one yet.<\/p>\n
Sanders scored a career-high 20 points and had seven rebounds (all defensive) in 36 minutes of a 103-102 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew nothing about him,\u201d Snoop Dogg admitted to Clippers star Kawhi Leonard in a postgame interview on the Peacock streaming service.<\/p>\n
Now, the rapper and a whole of others know the 23-year-old.<\/p>\n
Sanders was a second-round pick out of Nevada last year by the New York Knicks, who traded him to the Clippers. He spent four years at Cal Poly, where he was a 1,000-point scorer, before transferring to Nevada and earning All-Mountain West honors while playing a fifth year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough I\u2019m a rook, I\u2019ve played a lot of basketball in my life,\u201d said Sanders, who is from Spring Valley, California, an unincorporated town east of San Diego. \u201cJust playing basketball for such a long time, you pick up IQ, you pick up just little things here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n
And no, he isn\u2019t named after the late Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant. Sanders\u2019 parents named him for Kobe Japanese Steak House near Palm Springs, California, their favorite getaway spot.<\/p>\n
Sanders knew he was going to play a lot of minutes with Harden out, so he wasn\u2019t nervous about getting yanked if he made a mistake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I felt that freedom most of the season,\u201d he said. \u201cThey instill a lot of confidence in me, telling me to be aggressive, telling me to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leonard is among those in Sanders\u2019 ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tell him to keep being aggressive in the game,\u201d Leonard told Snoop Dogg. \u201cThat\u2019s your time to get better right there so don\u2019t shy away from it, just keep executing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curry fouled out late for the first time since 2021 after scoring 27 points, and Sanders said he felt \u201ca little bit of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Clippers have struggled with a slew of injuries this season and have a 13-22 record. But they\u2019re 7-3 in their last 10 games, having recently won six in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith James being down, we had 20 turnovers, but we didn\u2019t have a lot extra ballhandling on the floor, so for him to carry that load, I thought was really good,\u201d coach Tyronn Lue said, ticking off some of Sanders\u2019 attributes. \u201cHis poise, his ability to understand what we\u2019re doing defensively and offensively, and just getting more and more confident.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teammate John Collins described Sanders\u2019 performance as \u201cbig time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had a rough intro to the league, playing, not playing,\u201d he said. \u201cHaving this start probably shocked him a little bit, but he did exactly what we all expected him to do and proud of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Clippers are known for rarely playing rookies, but that doesn\u2019t dissuade Sanders.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou learn a new thing every game,\u201d he said. \u201cThe NBA is consistency and opportunity. I was blessed with the opportunity and I\u2019m just trying to stay consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kobe Sanders scored a career-high 20 points and had seven rebounds in 36 minutes on Monday. INGLEWOOD, Calif.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,10225,211001,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-395163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-kobe-sanders","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}