The last time the Clippers took the court was this past Saturday. They were pounded and embarrassed by the Warriors on the road on national television losing, 144-98. That was easily the Clippers' worst loss of the season.

Now, after three full days to think about that humiliation, the Clippers finally are back in action playing the Suns in Phoenix. LA has hosts the Warriors on Thursday and then takes off on a five-game road trip starting with Boston and Toronto. So there is no way the Clippers can look past the lowly Suns.

Minus Chris Paul, the Clippers are far from an elite team. But the prideful Clippers have Blake Griffin back, a star center in DeAndre Jordan and excellent backcourt depth. That's enough to cover this spread range against the Suns, who have dropped four in a row allowing an average of 119.3 points during their losing streak.

Griffin is getting the rust off scoring 20 points in 23 minutes against the Warriors in his second game back from missing 18 games with a knee injury. Jordan leads the league in field goal percentage, is No. 2 in rebounding and ninth in blocks. Austin Rivers is having his best season joining J.J. Redick and Jamal Crawford to give the Clippers a respectable backcourt even without Paul.

The Clippers certainly don't want to enter their Thursday rematch against the Warriors coming off a loss to the Suns, a team they are 2-0 against this season with the average victory margin being 14.5 points.

The Suns rank second-to-last in defense and usually are at their worst against Western Conference foes going 6-16-1 ATS in their last 23 games against them.