--The Clippers at least were spared the task of having to guard Dallas' All-Star forward Dirk Nowitzki. The league suspended Nowitzki for one game, without pay, for hitting Utah's Matt Harpring with a backward closed hand in the fourth quarter of Utah's 97-88 victory Dec. 26. The penalty was announced by the Stu Jackson, the NBA's executive vice president of basketball operations. Nowitzki initially was assessed a flagrant foul penalty two, which includes an automatic ejection from the game.
Nowitzki averaged 26 points in the two meetings last season against the Clippers and averaged 31 points and 8.5 rebounds in the two meetings between the teams this year. --Life in the NBA can take some strange turns. Just ask newly-signed Clippers guard Fred Jones, who joined the team after a one-day tryout and nearly three months of basketball unemployment. While sitting in front of his locker prior to the Clippers' game against the Dallas Mavericks, Jones waited for his locker neighbor, Zach Randolph, to arrive. Their banter began immediately upon Randolph's arrival. This is the third team, since midway through the 2006-2007 season, that Jones and Randolph have been teammates on. They joined forces first in February of 2007, when the Toronto Raptors traded Jones to the Portland Trail Blazers, where Randolph was the team's starting power forward. Four months later, Jones and Randolph were traded to the New York Knicks. Last month, Randolph was traded by the Knicks to the Clippers, while Jones was shuttling back and forth between Portland and Indianapolis, trying to stay in shape. "I've been stressing," said Jones, who spent his first four seasons in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers. Jones won the slam-dunk competition during the 2004 All-Star Weekend. But for Jones, that seemed like eons ago. "I didn't understand why I wasn't with a team."
--With starting forward Zach Randolph unable to play because of a sore left knee, Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy was forced to use his ninth starting lineup of the season against Dallas. Four of those lineups have been used once. The most oft-used group of Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Al Thornton, Marcus Camby and Randolph is 6-6. The Clippers used a NBA-high 39 different starting lineups last year. Twenty-four lineups were used just once.
--Former Clipper guard Cuttino Mobley was sitting in a courtside seat for the Dallas-Clippers game. Mobley recently announced his retirement, days after the Clippers traded him to the New York Knicks, because of a serious heart defect.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "It doesn't matter at all. We're 8-20. All I care about is winning." -- Clippers forward Zach Randolph, when asked if he took any pride in his production since joining the Clippers that equate to 23.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.
