Watched the dallas loss, but didn’t get to see the phoenix win. Watching, over the course of 2 days (I work 40 hours a week & have 2 kids under 2, natch, and yeah, it was the weekend, but see item #2) it was obvious the clips were playing a higher level of ball than they had the whole year, except for maybe the first week or 2 (during which they inexplicably had a winning record and fooled a few, yours truly among them, into thinking they might actually be decent.)

And now, it seems, I may be getting fooled again. Yeah, the end of the dallas game was heartbreak city, apologies to Ric Ocasek, with that Stackhouse trey, and the inane brainfart a la Tim Thomas (who it’s a bit hard to fault, as he had an amazing game up to that point, doing things that we ALL constantly harp that he should be doing on a regular basis, but just, well, doesn’t, like take it hard to the rack, rebound, etc.) taking that shot WAY too early in the shot clock to set up the stack three, but anyway, everything before that, well, most of it: gold. For a squad beat up as it was to lose Q in the first quarter and then almost beat Dallas, granted, without their 2nd best player (Josh Howard, who, crazy as it sounds, because he gets a lot of respect, may be underrated, especially for what he does for them on the defensive end and with the overall ball movement and spacing) out for the evening, well, it was nice to see. So who knows, with this well played (& yeah, there are no moral victories, blah, blah) loss & the win against the suns (complete with Sam’s back from the dead renaissance, how long that can/will last, if at all, remaining to be seen), maybe a turnaround is imminent?

Playing on the road tonight in Salt Lake City, some semblance of pudding’s proof will be perusable shortly.