Clippers Slip Back Into Past : Sacramento Gains Some Revenge With 123-95 Win

The exit polls closed early Tuesday night--like midway through the second quarter--as the Sacramento Kings, 2 days after players picked their own starting lineup, won a landslide victory.

No doubt there was also a measure of revenge for the Kings, who trounced the Clippers, 123-95, before a sellout crowd of 16,517 at Arco Arena after having lost by 11 when the teams met 13 days earlier in Los Angeles.

The Kings did everything right--hot shooting (for a change), big starts (for a change), good defense (for a change) and a win. For a change. They are 2-9.

The Clippers could offer only empty promises of an up-tempo offense and trapping defense, and after 4 victories in their previous 6 games, their record dropped to 6-7.

Sacramento, which shot 55.7% from the floor, breezed with surprising ease, taking control from the start and never looking back.

The Kings led by 11 points, 24-13, just 7:55 into the game, by 32 at halftime and by 27 at the end of the third quarter. They broke the 100-point plateau with 10:04 remaining, evidence that the Kings’ version of democracy can work.

“It does sometimes, doesn’t it,” Sacramento Coach Jerry Reynolds said. “This is America.”

This is not the best of the Clippers. They were already at less than full strength before the game--with leading scorer Charles Smith lost for at least 5 games with a strained left knee, key reserve Tom Garrick sidelined because of a twisted right ankle, and Joe Wolf playing in his first game in 10 days.

Then, the Kings made them appear even worse.

The Clippers, who shot just 43.4% and committed 27 turnovers, avoided their season low of 91 points, set Nov. 9 at Cleveland, by getting a pair of layups in the last 15 seconds. But they fell to 1-7 on the road, contrasted with 5-0 at the Sports Arena.

“We’re like a different team (on the road),” said Clipper guard Reggie Williams, who came off the bench to score a game-high 19 points. “We need to do something about that. And in a hurry.”

The Kings had been in such dire need of a change, Reynolds let his players vote Sunday on the starting lineup. The winners in a secret ballot were the incumbents from the previous 2 games--Rodney McCray, Ed Pinckney, LaSalle Thompson, Derek Smith and Kenny Smith--even though Sacramento had scored just 98 and 97 points in those outings.

There was no mandate, as several others received support, but Reynolds abided by the wishes of his players. The election winners backed up their votes by gaining a 13-point lead on several occasions in the first quarter.

Clipper Coach Gene Shue renovated his starting lineup of Ken Norman, Danny Manning, Benoit Benjamin, Norm Nixon and Quintin Dailey with 4 different players to open the second quarter, but that didn’t help, either.

The Kings increased their lead to 31 points, 71-40, on Derek Smith’s fast-break slam dunk with 1:39 to play in the second quarter.

Could this be the same Sacramento team that couldn’t break 100 points in the last 2 games? Could this be the league’s second-worst team in scoring (94.9-point average, going into the game) and field-goal percentage (41.9%)? Even the same team that shot 38.3% in a 112-101 loss to the Clippers Nov. 16 at the Sports Arena?

Whatever, the Kings’ approval rating soared. They got a standing ovation while leaving the court at halftime with a 73-42 lead.

“The first half was just a fantastic exhibition of basketball,” Clipper Coach Gene Shue said of the Kings.

Sacramento shot 63.8% from the floor in the first 2 quarters, led by Pinckney (5 of 8), Kenny Smith (5 of 7) and Joe Kleine (3 of 5). Kenny Smith finished 8 of 12 en route to 17 points and 7 assists, and Thompson had a team-high 18 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.

The Clipper scoring was led by reserves. Grant Gondrezick had 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting in 14 minutes, to go along with Williams, who was 5 of 15 from the floor.

“When you’re up by 20 points, it’s like you can throw the ball up behind your back and it will go in,” Williams said. “The key thing is that they maintained it. We tried to come back, and I think we played hard, but not well enough to catch them.”

The Clippers, looking to move into a second-place tie in the Pacific Division with Portland after the Trail Blazers’ loss earlier in the evening at Milwaukee, hit just 32.6% in the first half.

The Kings outscored the Clippers, 40-18, in the second quarter, making 16 of 22 shots (73%) in the process. The Clippers made 5 of 21 (24%) in the period.

The 73 points scored and 42 points allowed in the first half marked seasonal bests for Sacramento.

“In the first half, I’m sure we surprised them,” Reynolds said. “They got a bad start and didn’t shoot well, so that obviously hurt them. But we know just how that feels.”

Clipper Notes

Forward Joe Wolf returned to the lineup after missing the last 8 games with a groin injury and the flu. “You get frustrated,” said Wolf, who sat out 40 games with injuries last season as a rookie. “I worked real hard in the off-season, lifting weights and doing a lot of running, to be healthy to play 82 games. Hopefully, this is the last I’ll have to worry about coming back.” Wolf said he is 90-95% fit. . . . The most noticeable area of Clipper improvement had been in turnovers, where the team had committed 16, 16 and 20 in the 3 games before Tuesday. Still, going into Tuesday’s game, the Clippers were the second-worst team in the league in turnovers, at 21.7 a game, trailing only Houston at 23. . . . Center Benoit Benjamin began the night sixth in the league in blocked shots, at 2.83 a game. Mark Eaton of Utah leads with 4.82.