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ORLANDO, Fla. - With all the expectations heaped on the Clippers following their offseason makeover, they hadn't been faced with a major dose of adversity through the first part of the season.

ORLANDO, Fla. - With all the expectations heaped on the following their offseason makeover, they hadn't been faced with a major dose of adversity through the first part of the season.

Blake Griffin fell two assists shy of a triple-double, and he didn't even play in the fourth quarter.

The Clippers filled a glaring need in the frontcourt Friday by agreeing to a contract with veteran free agent power forward Kenyon Martin.

As sendoffs go, the Clippers could not have done worse than the dud they turned in Thursday in a 112-91 loss to the Denver Nuggets.

Needless to say, Los Angeles will be well-represented at the NBA All-Star Game in Orlando later this month.

SALT LAKE CITY - Chris Paul scored a season-high 34 points and Blake Griffin added 31 as the Clippers held on for a 107-105 victory over the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night.

NBA: L.A. makes 10 of 14 3-pointers in first half, then Griffin wows crowd with dunk over Perkins. What do you give the team that made 10 of 14 3-pointers in the first half?

DENVER - After fans in Denver showed him their appreciation, Chauncey Billups gave them one more reason to miss their native son and rue the day he left.

In sports lingo it's called a trap game, and it arrives in many different forms and fashions. It's the game right before the big game, when a team gets caught looking ahead to a so-called important matchup and slips up against an inferior opponent just ahead of it.

The loss to the Lakers on Wednesday night was tough to swallow. But the silver lining for the Clippers was how cleanly point guard Chris Paul responded to the 26 minutes, 40 seconds he played after missing the previous five games with a left hamstring strain.

. Standing in one corner, wearing red, white and blue, the upstart Clippers.

The Lakers' two-year reign as NBA champions ended with their second-round playoff loss last May to the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks.

What do you get when you hire a defensive-minded basketball coach whose teams historically focus more on making stops than figuring out ways to score points?

Eric Bledsoe is past the point of cursing his dumb luck over tearing the meniscus in his right knee last October during an offseason workout at home in Alabama.

NBA: L.A. shakes off bad loss, methodically takes care of Toronto enough to give key stars rest.

The players are dropping left and right for the Clippers. Injuries have been the biggest issue, but as Mo Williams showed Friday we can now add disqualification to the list of culprits.

One of the unsung heroes for the Clippers this year has been reserve swingman Randy Foye, who is often relegated to the role of defensive stopper, dribble penetrator and ball distributor.

With Chris Paul nursing a strained left hamstring, the Clippers were forced to play their first game of the season Monday without their new floor leader.

Kobe Bryant was named Monday morning to the preliminary 20-man roster for the 2012 London Olympics, which wasn't a shocker given his gold-medal performance for Team USA in the 2008 Beijing Games.