The Paddock Report: Suns Ran Away With It, Our Clippers +3.5 Didn't Survive

Suns 133, Clippers 110. This one was never close enough to need a late-game story. Phoenix scored 133 points, well above the 119.0 they allow per game, and the Clippers spent the night chasing a margin that kept growing.

Our pick was Clippers +3.5, and it missed. The entire thesis rested on rest. Phoenix was on the second night of a back-to-back, playing its fourth game in seven days. LA had two days off and had played only two games in the past week. We figured that 2-4 point rest swing would roughly cancel Phoenix's 2.5-3 point home-court edge, which made a fair line closer to pick'em than Suns -3.5. The math was defensible on paper. But a 23-point final margin says the rest gap didn't slow the Suns down enough to keep this within the number.

We also flagged the Clippers' 18.4 turnovers per game and Ingram's absence as reasons to keep this a modest play. Those were real concerns, and they're part of why we didn't go bigger on LA. They just weren't enough to save the bet.

The read was wrong, and we own it. Phoenix was the better team Tuesday night, and we backed the wrong side of a number that didn't reflect that. On to the next one.