PHOENIX — Ahead of Sunday night’s game in Phoenix – the fourth stop on the eight-game, 17-day odyssey – here are some thoughts on both Saturday night’s loss in Phoenix and Sunday’s game against the Suns.

— The Nets handled Saturday’s loss the way I think they should have. They were disappointed they lost, but realistic in the fact that they played quite well, but just came up short.

There were a lot of positives to come out of the night — particularly in how they held down Blake Griffin (11 points and seven rebounds) and did a nice job of grounding the high-flying Clippers offensive attack, as they didn’t complete a successful alley-oop until after halftime.

But, in the end, Chris Paul was simply too much for the Nets to handle. Paul was spectacular in the fourth, scoring 17 points and willing the Clippers to a win, as I wrote in my game story for Sunday’s paper.

— That said, Deron Williams had his chances. He committed a costly turnover with less than a minute remaining when Jamal Crawford stepped in front of his pass to Gerald Wallace and raced down court for a dunk that took the game in about five seconds from the Nets trailing by two with the ball and a chance to tie or take the lead to trailing by four with 48 seconds left and the game pretty much being out of reach.

Williams, who missed his first six shots of the second half, had a couple of key misses, as well. He had a chance to push the Nets lead to nine late in the third but missed a wide-open three, and then missed another three that would’ve given the Nets a lead with just under two minutes remaining.

Still, it’s hard to get upset with him having an off-night, especially when you consider how well he’s played since the All-Star break. He was bound to have an off-night at some point.

— And even though the Nets would have loved to start the Circus Trip 3-0, the fact of the matter is the Clippers game was one of the two toughest (along with Denver) on the trip. So, if the Nets can take care of business against the hapless Suns (and they’re really hapless), they’ll still be in excellent position to turn this trip into a highly successful one.

With a win, they’d be 3-1 on the trip, and if they could win either in Portland Wednesday or Utah Saturday (I don’t see any way they win in Denver, where the Nuggets are terrific and are already a bad matchup), that would give the Nets a winning record heading into the final — and very winnable — game against the Cavaliers in Cleveland. And coming out of this trip with anything more than a .500 record, given its length and difficulty, would be a nice launching pad into the final two weeks of the season.

tbontemps@nypost.com