The Clippers landed with a thud in the third quarter of last night's clash with the Knicks in the Big Apple coughing up a ten point halftime lead to be outscored 27-11 in the fateful third enroute to a disheartening 102-90 loss to New York. It's a setback that has dropped L.A. back to the .500 mark at 24-24 and now has them deadlocked with Denver for in the West, just a game and a half in front of Golden State for eighth.

The Clippers are 1-2 three games into their season-long seven game Eastern swing entering stop number four this afternoon (4pm PT) in Cleveland for a collision with LeBron James and the 27-21 Cavaliers. Los Angeles brings some defensive concerns into this match-up born of back to back games in which it's yielded 30 or more points in a quarter four times, allowing an average of 112ppg in consecutive losses to the Raptors and Knicks.

Now it's James, Larry Hughes, big Zydrunas Ilgauskas and a Cavs club that's considered a solid conference title contender in the East. That said, this foe it is struggling itself at the moment having lost eight of it's last twelve and four of six on it's home floor at the Quicken Loans Arena.

Cleveland's calling card is defense and rebounding under the guidance of 36 year old head coach Mike Brown, but lately the Cavs have struggled to stop teams giving up 99ppg over the last dirty dozen. Cleveland dumped the Clips in Los Angeles January 13 104-92 and has beaten L.A. four straight times on it's home floor.

The Clippers, while they are now 0-12 the first game of a back to back sequence, take a solid 8-3 record in on the second night. That includes quality wins over Denver, Orlando, and Houston. Is another in the offing this afternoon?

:: Chris Kaman to give Zydrunas Ilgauskas trouble in the center match-up. Kaman tapped back into an offensive flow last night in New York with a 14 point performance on 4-7 field goal shooting and rung up a season high 20 versus Cleveland in the January 13th encounter in L.A. He's quick enough around the rim to take it to the 31 year old Big 'Z', who himself is struggling right now averaging just 8ppg, 6.8rpg over the past five outings.
:: The Clippers energy level on the boards. This is their second straight opponent that makes money on the offensive board. The Cavaliers have snagged 143 more offensive rebounds than their opponents this season with Drew Gooden, Anderson Varejao, lgauskas and outstanding rebounding swingmen James and Hughes making life tough on opponents on the glass. Los Angeles did a solid job protecting the defensive board last night against the Knicks and must hold it's own in that regard to give itself a chance to steal this game late.
:: Transition points to swing the outcome of this one. The Cavaliers can demoralize foes with devastating open court finishers Larry Hughes and LeBron James throwing down for fast break points in bunches. The Clippers must do a much better job of protecting the ball in this game than they did last night when they turned it over 16 times for 23 Knicks points. Cleveland scores just 95ppg and can be contained defensively if forced to earn it's points with halfcourt execution. L.A. must be solid in keeping the Cavs from getting away from them in transition.
:: Cuttino Mobley to respond to last night's whitewashing with a solid game offensively in this one. Cat was shooting beautifully in the road trips first two games pumping through 22ppg, but in New York inexplicably disappeared going scoreless on 0-5 shooting. He figures to be back as a source of long range marksmanship that will frankly be a needed offensively element in this game to off-set the likely damage that James and Hughes will do for the Cleveland attack.

This will be an energy game for the Clippers. If they come out with fire and intensity they'll give themselves a chance to even their mark at 2-2 on the swing, but if they lag early on the boards and getting back defensively they'll put themselves behind the 8-ball against this quality foe.

It's encouraging that L.A.'s had a high level of success playing the second night of back to back sequences (8-3 on the season) and intriguing that the Clips seem to be catching the Cavs at a great time as Cleveland is lacking confidence overall at the moment coming off of a 90-78 home court loss to Detroit on Sunday.

Los Angeles will lean on Mobley and Quinton Ross to curtail the effectiveness of Hughes and James defensively while looking to Elton Brand and Kaman to contain Gooden, Ilgauskas and Varejao on the interior and boards. It will take a concerted team effort in all regards for the Clippers to snap a four game skid to the Cavs in Cleveland but this team is capable of getting that job done.

Last time Mike Dunleavy's squad laid an egg the size of the one left at Madison Square Garden last evening was against Minnesota January 27 in a 14 point home court loss to the Wolves, they responded the next night with a 94-76 blow-out victory at Seattle. Will that script play out again? Stay tuned.

Have a comment? E-mail your comments, questions or concerns to mpinto@clippers.com.

Five Things to Know About the Cleveland Cavaliers

1. Although he shoots right-handed, LeBron James writes with and predominantly uses his left hand.

2. Drew Gooden is half Finnish; his father, Andrew Gooden, met Drew's mother, Ulla, while playing pro basketball in Äänekoski, Finland.

3. Zydrunas Ilgauskas appeared in NBA Ballers: Phenom as a playable character and is the namesake of a mini-game within the game's story mode called the "Zydrunas Ilgauskas Spelling Bee" where the player must spell the last names of NBA players to win.

4. A collector of vintage cars, Scot Pollard’s first car was a 1972 Cadillac.

5. Scot Pollard earned the nickname “The Sacramento Samurai” due to his unique hairstyle while playing with the Kings.