The first thing that came to Coach Monty Williams’ mind when he was asked for his perspective on his Phoenix Suns’ opponent Tuesday night: Defense.

It’s the Clippers’ D, he said, that makes them dangerous and capable – even severely short-handed – of knocking off the better teams in the league, including beating fifth-place Dallas on Saturday and then a Golden State team with the league’s second-best record on Monday.

Williams said his Suns – who entered Tuesday’s game with a 46-10 record – would be wary of a team that dared to assign its 7-foot center to guard an All-NBA point guard, as Clippers coach Tyronn Lue did when he asked Ivica Zubac to mark Mavericks star Luka Doncic.

And Phoenix hasn’t forgotten all the ways the Clippers used zones and switches and small lineups to try to gum up the works when they met in last year’s Western Conference finals, a tantalizing series that the Suns won in six games.

And the Clippers – whose 108.6 defensive rating entering Tuesday ranked 10th-best in the league – got only stingier and more irksome with their recent trade for Robert Covington, who is statistically one of the most disruptive players in the NBA.

“I probably got the fastest hands in the league when it comes down to it,” Covington said Monday night, when the NBA credited him with three deflections, a tally he tweeted was too low (perhaps by as many as five, by an unofficial count).

Even if he’s being short-changed on occasion, Covington ranks third in total deflections in the league – with 169 so far, significantly more than Nicolas Batum’s 82 (or, for that matter, Eric Bledsoe’s 100, in his 54 games with the Clippers before he was included in the trade that brought aboard Covington and Norman Powell).

“He gets a deflection almost every possession,” Lue said. “Getting his hands on the ball … he does a great job defensively. He’s one of those guys that take defense personal.”

A first-team All-Defensive Team honoree in 2017-18, Covington said it’s a lot about his 7-foot-4 wingspan, a lot about instinct – but also a lot of time spent honing that ability.

He said he’s practiced with strobe lights to test his reaction times: “Let’s see how fast I can make it and how fast I can maneuver getting through a certain series of lights. It’s really just practice, repetition, instinct, and just being a disruptor.

“I take pride in being the disruptor and that’s what I’m here for. To be the disruptor in all aspects throughout the game.”

I watched the game last night and counted more than that smh

— Robert Covington (@Holla_At_Rob33) February 16, 2022

HOODIE FOR A CAUSE

Terance Mann threw himself into this philanthropic opportunity like he might attack Rudy Gobert at the rim.

The Clippers’ versatile 25-year-old wing recently teamed up with Kelsey Trainor – the creator of the “Invest. Pay. Hire” brand – on an athlete-to-consumer sweatshirt that advocates for equal pay for women while also raising funds for youth in Lowell, Massachusetts, where Mann grew up.

The sweatshirts, which also come with a custom radio, are for sale online for $135, with all of the profits going to the Lowell Boys & Girls Club.

“One of my friends just messaged me, he had an opportunity to collab with them on a hoodie and a radio and I thought it was great for me, and great for my city to be able to get the benefits off what’s going on there,” said Mann, who has modeled the embroidered hoodie during a recent pregame walk-in.

Invest In Women.

Pay Women.

Hire Women. pic.twitter.com/gzp6jbwKJd

— Julian Aiken (@J_Aiken2) February 7, 2022

“We had a really awesome, I want to call it a hype session,” Trainor said by phone. “He said how he grew up, it was really cool to him, he didn’t know anything but support for women and women’s sports … so we talked and went back and forth and we’re pretty pumped in being to drop it and getting it out to people in the NBA and WNBA.”

Mann’s mom, Daynia La-Force, was a college coach for two decades, including as the head coach at Rhode Island. Last summer, she served as an assistant on the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream staff.

“The message is huge for my mom, my family, a lot of women in my circle also,” Mann said. “Just being able to push that message is big for me and my circle.”

Who scored their Invest in Women x @terance_mann hoodie?

https://t.co/66dJ4BSXwC

— Kelsey Trainor (@ktrain_11) January 30, 2022

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