Reporting from Indianapolis—
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It's back on the road again for the Clippers, part of their nine games away from Staples Center in March as they play a heavy schedule of 20 games this month.
But this stretch of road games has to be considered the most harrowing, challenging and demanding physically and mentally for the Clippers. They will play back-to-back-to-back games for the second time this season — and all are on the road.
The Clippers start at the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday, then play at the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday and finish at the New Orleans Hornets on Thursday.
"All three of these teams are very good teams," Chris Paul said after Sunday's win over the Detroit Pistons. "[And] I don't care what the Hornets' record is. They play hard every night and they are always in every game."
It will be a homecoming for Paul in New Orleans.
He spent his first six seasons with the Hornets before he requested a trade that eventually got him to the Clippers in exchange for Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman and Al-Farouq Aminu. This will be Paul's first trip back since the trade.
Paul said that he still has his "CP3" after-school program in New Orleans and that he expects to have 150 kids attend the game Thursday as his guests.
"I'll have a lot of family and friends there. It'll be a little odd. But you've got to do it at some point," he said.
When the Clippers had their first set of three games in a row in January, they were 2-1, losing the middle game in Utah by 29 points.
"I remember we had kind of a lull in the middle game," Blake Griffin said. "When we played in Utah, we got beat pretty good. That third game wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. It is more mental than it is physical."
Win streaks
The Clippers beat Houston and Detroit over the weekend, the first time they have won consecutive games since Feb. 15-16, when they won back-to-back games against Washington and at Portland.
Now the Clippers are looking for their third straight victory for the first time since Jan. 29-Feb. 1, when they won at Denver, against Oklahoma City and at Utah.
"There are no excuses from us at all," Randy Foye said. "We're professionals. We get a lot of money to play this game. We play every other night and we're playing some good teams. And every team is up for us....
"We started off hot and then we had that little stretch where we win one, lose one, win one, lose one, win one, lose two, win one. But now I think it's all starting to turn around and our team is getting stronger."
broderick.turner@latimes.com
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