The judge hasn't written anything yet that indicates he's abandoned his deathmarch to a courtroom. He's sanctioning Greer for directly violating his instructions to make that march as smooth as possible. Russ, being a complete retard, started delaying and muddying everything the moment he had to follow procedure on his own. He couldn't help but spit at the one person giving him undeserved help.
At some point Hardin will press again for those case-ending sanctions. It feels like he's reading the judge during discovery, waiting to motion for summary dismissal once he gets everyone to agree Russ has zero evidence, once even the appeals court could not liberally construe Russ' plights as evidence. Once the judge stops calling these motions premature, then we can talk about the case being in sight of dismissal.