The bad news: Clippers are hot, and the Suns are meh. The better news: the Clippers are on a traveling back-to-back which means they’ll probably be a bit more tired than the Suns who have been staying at home these past few days. So essentially, tonight is the night the Suns might lose the season. Granted, it won’t be that if the other teams fail in an appropriate manner, but how many times must the Suns rely on other teams to fail? The fact of the matter is, that given the upcoming schedule, if the Suns win all four remaining games, they’re in, no matter what happens next.

The Suns bench failed the team last night, along with a putrid performance from Marcin Gortat who just kept on missing easy shots for some reason, and against a subpar (to say the least) Clippers bench, the Suns will have to wake up and realize that they can win the game right in that bench battle, while destroying them on the pick and roll. It would be good to give Gortat some confidence by going to him early, since I’m sure he’ll be motivated to redeem himself for his Oklahoma City nightmare.

The Suns are on Life Support, and the only way they pull themselves out is if they win tonight. Sure, they won’t die, if they don’t, but I’m pretty sure the doctors will be giving them sedatives to make it easier if they do lose.

The Clippers are going to stay home, facing a team that embarrassed them on their home floor without Steve Nash or Grant Hill. In an ironic twist, the Clippers will once again face the Suns without Grant, however Steve Nash will play.

The lack of Grant poses a serious problem, however. Steve Nash has had trouble guarding Chris Paul (and  who can blame him) and putting Shannon Brown or Jared Dudley on him seems like an even worse idea. Defensively, the Suns are miles behind the Clippers, however, in this matchup, the Suns have a rare advantage: A competent bench, that has been on fire of late. Even with the subtraction of Shannon Brown from it (which turned out quite ok with his 32 points).The Clippers have a pretty bad bench beyond Mo Williams and Kenyon Martin, and they’ll surely have at least a bit of trouble containing the streaking Bassy Telfair (I really can’t believe I’m typing this up) and the resurgent (again, can’t believe) Robin Lopez. These guys keyed the Suns surge, and they have to be on their game.

Again… Second game of a back-to-back, away game…

Do you believe in miracles?

This time, all they need is execution.