r regular players available," Portugal coach Paulo Bento said. "Wee paid the price of

HOUSTON -- Chris Paul had 30 points and 12 assists, Jamal Crawford added 22 points and the Los Angeles Clippers clinched their franchise-record third straight playoff appearance with a 118-107 win over the Houston Rockets on Saturday night. The loss broke a five-game winning streak for Houston, which was without two of its starters as Dwight Howard and Pat Beverley sat out with injuries. The Clippers trailed by as many as 15 points in the first half before using two big runs to take the lead. Houston stuck around for most of the second half before consecutive 3s by Matt Barnes and Darren Collison made it 114-101 late in the fourth. But it wasnt all good for Los Angeles, as Blake Griffin left in the first quarter with back spasms and didnt return, and Glen Davis missed the second half for disciplinary reasons after throwing a temper tantrum in the second quarter. James Harden led the Rockets with 32 points, and Chandler Parsons had 28. DeAndre Jordan added 20 points with 12 rebounds for the Clippers, who are third in the Western Conference. Crawford scored all of the Clippers points in an 8-1 run to start the fourth quarter and leave them up 96-85. An 8-3 run by Houston cut the lead to 102-96 with five minutes remaining. Harden capped it with a free throw after a technical foul on Paul. The Rockets scored the first five points of the third quarter to take a 63-61 lead. The teams exchanged the lead several times in that quarter before a layup by Ryan Hollins left Los Angeles up 88-84 entering the fourth quarter. The first half was filled with drama for the Clippers, who lost Griffin in the first quarter before the incident with Davis in the second. There appeared to be minimal contact between Griffin and Donatas Motiejunas before Griffin dropped to his hands and knees on his way to the bench after a timeout was called midway through the first quarter. He was clutching his lower back and remained on the court for a couple of minutes before being helped to his feet. He was biting his jersey as he gingerly walked off the court and to the locker room. Davis, whose nickname is "Big Baby," was apparently upset after being taken out in the second quarter and threw a temper tantrum at coach Doc Rivers. Rivers immediately sent him to the locker room and the team announced that he would not return after halftime. Davis was 0-for-2 with a steal in less than four minutes in the first half. With Griffin out, Houston used a 7-2 spurt to start the second quarter and extend its advantage to 40-25. The Rockets were still up by 15 points a couple of minutes later when the Clippers used an 8-0 run to cut the lead to 44-37. Harden made three free throws before another run -- this one 14-2 -- gave Los Angeles a 51-49 lead. Paul, who had 17 points in the second quarter, scored the first 10 points in that span with two 3s and he dished an alley-oop to Jordan to cap it with a dunk. Los Angeles led by a point soon after that before scoring six straight points to extend the lead to 61-54 Houston scored the last four points of the quarter to cut the lead to 61-58 at halftime. NOTES: Jordan went to high school in Houston and college at nearby Texas A&M. ... Howard is day to day with a left ankle strain and Beverley has a torn meniscus in his right knee and is out indefinitely. Air Jordan 7 Wholesale . Various media outlets, including the Detroit Free Press, indicate a deal is close, while USA Today cited an unidentified person directly involved with the negotiations as saying the pact is for two years. Cheap Air Jordan 7 . Bale has had a successful debut season in Spain, and Ancelotti appears ready to reward him with a starting role on Saturday. Ancelotti says "Gareth had some problems at the beginning (of the season) but when he found good physical condition he scored a lot of goals, he had a good impact on the team. http://www.cheapairjordan7.com/ . Every. Single. Game. Thats 1,230 in total to cover the regular season. The man is Corey Sznajder, a soft-spoken 23-year-old Salisbury University grad who lives in Annapolis, Maryland and has been charting zone entries and zone exits throughout the NHL. I love big projects, he said. No kidding. At the 2013 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, I met Eric Tulsky, who presented research on the value of controlled zone entries (short answer: about twice as valuable to enter with control of the puck rather than dumping it in) and Sznajder had charted a couple hundred games that were included in that study. Cheap Jordan 7 Free Shipping . Moments after his Brooklyn Nets teammates ran out onto the court to congratulate him following their 100-98 overtime win over the Phoenix Suns on Friday night, Johnson could only shake his head at scoring only 13 points on 6-of-19 shooting. Jordan 7 For Sale Cheap . They say things like "stress is when you dont know what youre doing" and "I wasnt hired to motivate players, I was hired to coach motivated players." They ring as true now as they did when Mularkey heard them the first time playing tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame coach 25 years ago.Many have asked: why on earth is it taking so long to announce Shawn Thorntons suspension? On December 7, Thornton pulled Brooks Orpik to the ice from behind and punched him a few times in the face for good measure. Orpik was taken off on a stretcher, and having suffered a concussion, hasnt played since the incident. The scene was reminiscent of Tie Domi on Ulf Samuelsson, and to a lesser extent Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi. Thorntons hearing will be Friday, almost a full week after the incident. Its not a surprise this one is taking time. The weight of the NFL concussion lawsuits, the recently filed NHL concussion class action and the Boogaard lawsuit are likely weighing heavily on the decision making process. The league may be looking at this one very carefully to ensure they send the right message, not only to players, parents and fans, but also to potential jurors. And that message is this: we are taking all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of our players. The league will want to be seen as being proactive when it comes to protecting the brains of players, and that means firmly addressing unnecessary risk on the ice. Hockey is an inherently dangerous sport and that will never change. Still, contact that is not part of the game will be scrutinized. It seems unlikely that NHL vice-president of player safety Brendan Shanahan will be working alone on this suspension. This will be a group effort with lawyers intimately involved. This incident raises complex legal issues and will be considered with care. Ultimately, the suspension is less a hockey decision and more a legal decision. So whatever the ruling by the NHL, the assumption needs to be that the league will actively consider the legal angles before making its decision. This is an important time for the league. The discussion about violence in sports has been rising over the past few years as the public becomes more aware of the potential long-term impact of headshots. Indeed, there seems to be a trend emerging: concerns over violence in sports have become part of the narrative of the game of hockey and they dont seem to be going away anytime soon.dddddddddddd And, in part, those concerns are now being expressed in lawsuits. A Crime? One more question that is raised: were Thorntons actions a crime? The answer lies in the issue of consent, which is your starting point when assessing whether a hit on the ice is elevated to a crime. In hockey, when a player steps on the ice, he is agreeing to some form of bodily contact and the risk of injury that flows from that contact. Hockey is understood to be an inherently violent game and injuries happen. At law, this principle of consent is called voluntary assumption of risk. Players assume risk when playing and cant turn around and sue for the harm that comes from that type of fair and expected contact. However, a distinction should be made. Players are only consenting incidental contact (or contact that is part of the game like body checks). Players are not consenting to acts that are outside the scope of what is acceptable in the game. When that happens, you start asking if a crime has occurred. We did that in cases like Bertuzzi on Moore, McSorley on Brashear and Alex Perezhogin on Garrett Stafford. And we are doing that with Thornton on Orpik. Its tough to argue that Thorntons actions constitute incidental contact. Pulling Orpik to the ice from behind and punching him repeatedly in the face is not contact that is accepted as part of the game. So to characterize the incident as an assault is not unreasonable. And just because it happened on the ice doesnt change anything. Assault is assault is assault. That being said, the incident wasnt bad enough to warrant charges and thats why we didnt see any materialize. Finally, as far as length of the suspension, my best guess is 12 to 15 games. Anything north of 15 games will signal an acknowledgement that times have changed. ' ' '