Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

L.A. Clippers +3½ -110 over Phoenix

9:00 PM EST. Phoenix has to play basketball again tonight, and that sentence is doing a lot of work. Less than 24 hours ago the Suns were run out of their own building by San Antonio, 122-96, outrebounded 55-35, watching Victor Wembanyama hang 40 points and nine blocks on them in 25 minutes while the home crowd started cheering for the visitor by the fourth quarter. Devin Booker burned 32 points in a game that was over by halftime, which is the worst kind of back to back: heavy legs, heavy starter minutes in a hopeless cause, and a locker room that got embarrassed in front of its own fans. Now the same group has to lace them up again against a rested opponent, and the track record says they will not. Phoenix is 2-7 against the spread this season and has failed to cover seven straight home games on the second night of a back to back against Western Conference opponents. This is not a slump. It is a habit.

The Clippers, meanwhile, spent Monday resting, and they rested as a team that just found itself. On Sunday they hung a season high 139 on New Orleans, shooting 54.8 percent, burying 16 threes, piling up 34 assists and getting 59 points from the bench. Most telling of all, a team that came in averaging a league worst 20.1 turnovers turned it over a season low 11 times. Darius Garland is the reason it is starting to cohere: 24 points and 10 assists against the Pelicans, the team leader in scoring and assists, probing a defence that has no idea where the help is coming from. Brook Lopez dragging the Suns' thin frontcourt out to the three point line does the rest, because Phoenix remains the worst rebounding team in the league at 38.8 boards a night and is still guarding the paint with a rookie and spare parts while Mark Williams recovers from shoulder surgery.

Then there is the perimeter fight, and it is not fair on tired legs. Kris Dunn has 23 steals already and the Clippers rank fifth in the league at 9.9 a game, and between Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr., Los Angeles can throw two long, mean defenders at Booker and Jalen Green for 48 minutes. Booker's entire Sunday night workload went into a lost cause, Green is the fans' current scapegoat, and the Suns' offence beyond those two is a rumour: 110.6 points a game, 22nd in the league, from a team that has covered two spreads all season being asked to lay points on no rest against a deeper, fresher, meaner roster.

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