Blake Griffin/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers

– Nine games in and the Clippers are 5-4. That could not have been expected by anyone. But the Clippers can at least take solace in knowing that they were missing Chris Paul (groin) and J.J. Redick (back) the entire game and Blake Griffin (ejected) for half of it. Those are their three leading scorers.

– Griffin already has four technical fouls this season, tying him for the league lead with Paul George of Indiana. Griffin had two in this one. Tell you what, though, this guy gets hammered hard almost every time he gets into the paint and often nothing is called. It happened in Dallas a night earlier, as well.

– It’s difficult to take anything positive from a 14-point loss. But Wesley Johnson did score 14 points, his first double-digit performance for the Clippers. He was 3 of 6 from 3-point range.

– It’s true, the Clippers were severely short-handed. But it’s worth nothing that the Suns shot 53 percent from the field, 46.7 (14 of 30) from 3-point range. “Our defense was awful,” Doc Rivers said. “Back-to-back 118, 53-percent (games).” The Mavericks actually shot 55.3 percent in their 118-108 win over the Clippers on Wednesday.

– Another good thing for the Clippers was the game had by Jamal Crawford. He had a season-high 18 points on 7 of 14 shooting. He also had three steals. Alas, it wasn’t all gravy as Crawford had five of his team’s 14 turnovers; Lance Stephenson had four.