After a stellar 14-2 start, the Los Angeles Clippers have come back down to earth.The Clippers have won just four of their past nine games, facing injuries and the usual bumps of an 82-game season as they prepare to visit the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night.The Clippers are not in dire straits by any means. They are as dangerous as ever. Even with Blake Griffin out Saturday, Chris Paul poured in 20 assists and had no turnovers in a win over the New Orleans Pelicans.Getting Griffin back in the lineup Monday, Los Angeles held on for a 121-120 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. It was a game where the Clippers showed off the potential and the devastating offense that ran through the league early in the season.But it also showed some of their flaws too -- the defensive lapses and the stagnation of the offense that sometimes slows the team down.The Clippers are back on the winning track, but things are not quite right still.It was a win. I didnt think we played great, but Ill take the win, Los Angeles coach Doc Rivers told the Orange County Register following Mondays win.The Clippers still rank in the top five in both offensive and defensive rating. That typically means the team is among the very best in the league.Since Thanksgiving, though, the Clippers have been much more middle of the road -- ninth in offensive rating and 16th in defensive rating. The certainly explains some of the slippage and the missteps the team has made in the last few weeks.L.A. is hoping the three-game road trip to the East Coast -- all against losing teams in the Southeast Division -- can help the team keep moving back in the right direction and back toward contention.The Clippers opponent Wednesday is doing some soul-searching of its own.The Magic entered last week with the third best defense in the league by defensive rating. This came as they won three of the first four games in a five-game road trip.The defense slipped last week, though. Orlando played four games in five nights to complete an eight-games-in-12-days stretch and struggled defensively. The Magic fell to 12th in the league in a matter of a week, giving up 100 points in all four games. It was the first time they had allowed 100 points in consecutive games since mid-November.Thats the biggest thing in the last four games, Orlando coach Frank Vogel said. We let our guard down for whatever reason on the defensive end. We have to return to form. Its got to happen a lot mentally rather than having three hard days of practice. Theres still not a lot of practice time. We have to get that end of the floor performing at a higher level.The Magic did not quite get their defense under control and back to an elite level in a 131-120 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday.But, with just a three-point lead entering the fourth quarter, the Magic allowed just 24 points in the final 12 minutes to get some breathing room and protect their lead.For them, it will take more than a quarter of strong defense to hold off the star-powered Clippers as the Magic still seek some consistency and return to form. Cheap Sneakers Authentic .com) - The Calgary Flames aim to bounce back from their first regulation home loss of the campaign on Friday night when they host a Detroit Red Wings club that they swept in three meetings a season ago. Sneakers Outlet . But now that hes in the NHL, the Calgary Flames centre showed big improvement in that department by scoring the winner in the eighth round of a 5-4 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday. http://www.cheapsneakersfromchina.com/ . McPhee said that Ovechkins father Mikhail is in stable condition after having the surgery this week and is no longer in intensive care. "Weve told him to stay as long as necessary with your dad," he said. Ovechkin and his Russian national team were eliminated from the mens hockey tournament in Sochi on Wednesday with a 3-1 quarter-final loss to Finland. Cheap Sneakers Fast Shipping .875,000, avoiding arbitration. Clippards deal Monday means all eight Nationals players who filed for arbitration wound up settling before a hearing. China Sneakers For Sale . There was no hesitation from the 40th-ranked Pospisil, from Vernon, B.C., who admitted that he cut back on his training sessions over the last few days to conserve energy as the long ATP season finishes next week at the Paris Masters. VIENNA -- A city in Siberia will be stripped of hosting the 2021 world biathlon championships if Russians in the sport fail doping retests of samples taken at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.International Biathlon Union President Anders Besseberg told The Associated Press on Wednesday its possible without problem to reallocate the hosting rights from the city of Tyumen if more Russian doping infringements surface following the revelation of an alleged state-backed doping plot at the Sochi Games.WADA and IOC have commissions working on this, Besseberg said. If they should come up with things that it will be wrong, or as a kind of punishment, that you cannot organize big events in Russia, then there is absolutely no problem for us. We will have a new congress in 2018.The IBU Congress in Chisinau, Moldova, last weekend elected Tyumen to host the competition despite a recent IOC recommendation to all winter sports federations to freeze their preparations for major events in Russia and find host cities in other countries.According to Besseberg, the IOC request from July didnt apply to the 2021 biathlon worlds because its host bidding process had already started.Besseberg said the IBU and other winter sports federations received a very clear statement by the International Olympic Committee at a meeting during the Rio de Janeiro Games last month that all competitions already granted to Russia should run normally, and applications (to host an event) that were in process shall also run the normal way. This was the case for us.Therefore, two IBU events in Russia in the 2016-17 season -- the junior world championships in Ostrov in Februuary and a World Cup event in Tyumen the following month -- will go ahead as planned.ddddddddddddAlso in other winter sports, no major events have been moved from Russia so far.In a statement to the AP, the IOC said it is aware of the decision of the IBU Congress and will continue its discussions with the International Olympic Winter Sports Federations about the practical implementation of the recommendation of the IOC EB.The IOC announced earlier its recommendation was an interim order through 2016 which its board will review in December.Situated 2,500 kilometers east of Moscow, Tyumen won Sundays election by getting an absolute majority in the first round of voting, beating rival bids from Pokljuka in Slovenia and Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic.Officials from several national biathlon federations, including those of the United States, Canada and Norway, publicly criticized the choice for a Russian venue as it would send a wrong signal in the awake of the World Anti-Doping Agency inquiry report on the state-backed doping plot.When its about granting the rights for the world championships, its the sole responsibility of the delegates from the different national federations, Besseberg said, adding that none of the delegates asked questions or had any remarks during the congress when they were informed by him on the updated IOC recommendation.The voting on the candidates run in the absolutely normal way, Besseberg said.---AP Sports Writer Stephen Wilson in London contributed to this report. ' ' '