More photos » Danny Chan La - AP

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When the Clippers made 7 of their first 11 shots to open up an early 15-5 lead, Jerry Sloan took a timeout.  As the teams were heading to the bench, Ralph Lawler pointed out that the Clippers had played the night before in LA, they'd arrived at 3 AM, they were adjusting to the altitude, and they were playing without their second leading scorer in a city where they have a .025 winning percentage over the past two decades or so: it didn't make sense that they would start the game strong.

Indeed it didn't, and after that time out, things more or less returned to normal.  The Clippers managed to hold onto their lead through most of the first half, losing it with 2:45 before halftime.  They regained it briefly, but Mehmut Okur's three a minute later gave Utah the lead for good.  The second half was the game we expected from the start - Utah getting easy buckets, the Clippers struggling to even get shots off, looking tired and disinterested. I haven't seen the popcornmachine game flow yet, but it seems like it will be a fairly steady downhill line from the 15-5 Clipper lead to the final score.  That's a 32 point difference, 102 to 70, over that span.  It all ended up where we suspected it would from the start, in LA's 40th loss in their last 41 trips to the Beehive state.

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More photos » Gus Ruelas - AP

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You can get a lot of my thoughts from the quarter-by-quarter updates I added to the game thread post.  With a game in Utah tomorrow night, I won't be writing a super-detailed recap of this one.  Not sure what I would write if I wanted to go detailed.  It's like this - I'm trying to think of questions to ask Kim Hughes in the post game press conference, and there's nothing to ask. "Hey coach, why did the team shoot 37%?  Hey coach, were they trying to make shots?"  You can't win when you shoot 37%.  You can't win when your staring backcourt is 5 for 22.  That's it.  That's the end of the story.

It's especially disappointing coming from Eric Gordon of course.  He had unbelievable success against the Thunder last season, so to come out and have one of the worst games of his career is disappointing and surprising.  Kim Hughes said in his post game comments that he thinks EJ has a sore leg - that he could see him favoring it, and that he was struggling with his shot and on defense because of it.  I guess that's good news if it explains his extremely sub-par performance - but it's bad news if it keeps him out of the Utah game.  The coach did not know how or when the injury might have occurred.

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More photos » Jason Redmond - AP

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I don't really have the stamina or perhaps the focus to do a major analysis of this loss.  The Clippers were ahead by one at halftime, but the Suns spanked them in the second half.  And not one of those mild, swats on the year that no one notices.  This was a public spanking, like the good old days.  Like you're in the grocery store with your mom in 1971 and you're give her some lip and she puts you over her knee and spanks you right then and there. 

The Clippers make teams look so very good, you wonder how they could possibly ever lose.  Why do the Suns have 24 losses?  How can it be possible?  They can get any shot they want, and even when they take bad shots, the shots go in.  Of course, the Clippers also make the Spurs and Hornets and several other teams look like NBA champs, so obviously it says more about the Clippers than it does about those other teams.  But still, it's hard to imagine anyone beating the Suns the way they shot in the second half.

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More photos » Gus Ruelas - AP

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The Clippers insist on making things difficult.  Playing one of the absolutely hottest teams in the NBA, a team they rarely if ever beat, they led wire-to-wire to win the game.  And yet it is the near complete meltdown in the final 2.5 minutes that we'll all remember, the 150 seconds that gave ulcers to our ulcers. 

The Clippers led 99-84 with under 4 minutes to go and then again 101-89 at the 2.5 minute mark, Lawler's Law supposedly slamming the door at that point.  But the Jazz went on a 12-2 run over the next two minutes and 15 seconds, with Deron Williams at the line for two free throws to tie the game with 16 seconds left.  Amazingly, he missed them both, the Clippers made 5 of 6 free throws down the stretch and won the game.

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More photos » Steve Yeater - AP

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The Clippers shot only 37% in this game.  Their guard rotation of Baron Davis, Eric Gordon and Steve Blake combined to make just 10 of 34 shots (29%) and 2 of 11 threes (18%).  But amazingly, when Chris Kaman grabbed a rebound in the final two minutes, the team had possession down one and a chance to take their first lead since midway through the first quarter.  The possession, along with the Clippers' faint hopes in this game, lasted about a second, as Ime Udoka stole Kaman's lazy outlet pass, Tyreke Evans made a layup, and the Kings secured a five point win.

It's tempting to blame the loss on Kaman for that late turnover - or perhaps for the blown layup, or the pass from Drew Gooden he dropped out of bounds - but while Kaman was not particularly sharp, neither were his teammates.  In particular, in the last few minutes of quarters, the Kings were able to execute and get points, while the Clippers were not.

It began in the first.  With the Clippers down 2, 20-18, the Kings went on a 12-0 run over the last two minutes of the first quarter.  In a very real sense, that run was the entire difference in the game.  The Kings never again trailed, and never led by more than 16.  They also scored on their last possession of each of the first three quarters - a buzzer beating jumper by Spencer Hawes in the first, a coast-to-coast drive for a layup by Tyreke Evans at halftime, and a crazy runner by Donte Greene in the third.

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More photos » Barry Gossage - NBAE via Getty Images

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Going into this game, if you knew that one starting center was going to score 30 points and the other was going to score 12, you'd be pretty happy as a Clippers fan.  Amazingly though, All Star Chris Kaman has still yet to record a 30 point game in his career, while second year pro Robin Lopez bested his own career high by ten.

Since there's no hope for the Clippers to make the playoffs, a high-scoring loss is not the worst thing that could happen.  At least it's entertaining, and no one really expected them to win, especially in Phoenix against the red-hot Suns.  The Clippers shot 48% from the field and also made 12 of 25 threes for 48%, which would be more than enough offense to win most nights.  But as we mentioned in the preview, the Suns approach is just to outscore you, and they certainly did that, shooting 57%. 

Surprisingly, while the Clippers hung around for much of the game, pulling to within 4 points early in the fourth, it's not as if they got great games from their big players.  Eric Gordon had a good night, with 25 points on 14 shots, and Craig Smith and Travis Outlaw were both outstanding off the bench, scoring 18 and 16 respectively.  But Baron Davis was pretty quiet, and Rasual Butler and Drew Gooden were only OK, not great.  Then there was Kaman.

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More photos » Jason Redmond - AP

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I watched this game at home with my good friends Nick and Maya, who are passing through LA after their honeymoon in New Zealand.  Neither is a huge hoops fan - Nick usually goes to a Clippers game with me when he's in town, but Maya may have been watching her first ever NBA game.  It's always interesting to me to watch games with people who aren't immersed in the NBA, because it helps me see things from a different perspective.

At the start of the game, I mentioned that the Clippers had lost 13 of 14 against the Pistons, and Nick, very logically stated that it didn't matter - these are two different teams, so seven years of history has no bearing on this particular game.  I had to confront my illogical (yet very real) belief that it did matter - that certain opponents just have a team's number.  Maybe it's confidence of the dominant team, or lack of confidence of the other team.  Maybe there's something else.  But something about the Pistons just seems to mean that the Clippers will struggle, regardless of who is on the roster.

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More photos » Gus Ruelas - AP

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The Clippers' win tonight was notable for several things.  For one, the Clippers have won back-to-back games after losing six in a row - that in an of itself is big news.  For another, Theo Ratliff (10 points) outscored Stephen Jackson (7 points) for the Bobcats.  That's just bizarre.  For a third, the Clippers looked deep in this game - which is something that hasn't happened very often.

Player for player, you wouldn't really think that Gooden-Outlaw-Blake for Camby-Thornton-Telfair would make a significant difference for team depth.  Camby is the best player of the bunch, and theoretically Thornton and Telfair are legitimate NBA talents, so it doesn't seem like it should add much.  Maybe it's just the fact that this game comes on the heels of a few where we were seeing a lot of Steve Novak and Bobby Brown and Mardy Collins and Brian Skinner in the rotation.  Maybe it's the fact that Thornton and Rasual Butler never seemed to play well at the same time all season.  Maybe it's that Blake is the type of back up point guard that will steady the ship and make plays for teammates, while Telfair is more mercurial.  Whatever the reason, there wasn't ever a rotation tonight where I thought to myself, "uh oh, this could get ugly."

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