The LA Clippers were coming off a snoozing win vs. the Utah Jazz and this time it caught up with them as the surprising Phoenix Suns dominated from the start winning 107-88.The Suns scored the first 11 points and never looked back as the Clippers pulled to within a few points in the second quarter before the visitors easily pulled away.Point guard and ex-Clipper Eric Bledsoe was back in town and played ok but his defense stymied Chris Paul, who had an off night.The guy who manhandled Los Angeles was guard Goran Dragic, 5 yrs in the league out of Slovenia.His smooth-skilled ball handling and deceptive moves create a lot of problems for defenses. He has a nice outside shot and penetrates to the basket without fear as he had a game-high 26 points on 10-15 shooting in the first 3 quarters as he sat out the 4th quarter.He also added 8 assists and had 20 of his points in the first half doing whatever he wanted to scorch the Clippers.
The Suns have put together a nice chemistry under first year coach and ex-player Jeff Hornacek even after trading starting center Marcin Gortat earlier this year for injured Emeka Okafor.That paved the way for Miles Plumlee out of Duke in his second year to show his talents and he has been taking advantage of that.Their team is very balanced with defensive minded PJ Tucker and 3 point shooting forward Channing Frye complimenting the team.Off the bench, they have the Morris twins (Marcus and Markieff) making havoc for teams with their inside and outside play along with journeyman Gerald Green coming into his own finally.He was only well known before for winning the slam dunk contest but he is the first guard off the bench and adds a lot to both ends of the court averaging 13 points a game. He scored 21 points and was on fire from 3-point range vs. the Clippers.
Meanwhile, Doc Rivers team seemed asleep pretty much the whole night no matter what they did. It was one of those off nights for a good team but he gave credit to Phoenix for their all around play. He said it was their worst game they have played all season but the losses to Golden St and Portland were worse as he felt they should have won those games. Blake Griffin had a team high 15 points along with Jamal Crawford but the team didn’t shoot well while they committed 20 turnover (17 of them coming off steals by Phoenix) and many led to easy baskets.They shot 36% from the field and Chris Paul admitted it was an old-fashioned whipping from beginning to end.Griffin, Paul and Crawford went a combined 15-42 from the field while Matt Barnes was the only Clipper to shoot 50% going 5-10 for anyone that took more than 2 shots. Good news that JJ Reddick got his hard cast off and is now in a soft cast so he is progressing and plans to start shooting next week.
Next up are the Charlotte Hornets on New Years Day and you can see more at www.clippers.com
