Clippers Trip on Way to a Big Fall Against Trail Blazers, 113-92

The Clippers ran into another one of those potholes on the road to respectability Tuesday night.

They should have seen it coming.

The ditch that swallowed them whole was Memorial Coliseum, site of 23 straight losses for the Clippers, including a 22-point defeat last month. They couldn’t even make it interesting Tuesday night, as they were buried in the second quarter, when the Portland Trail Blazers took a comfortable lead, and then flattened the Clippers, 113-92.

So what else is new? The Clippers (7-13) are 1-10 on the road after losing to a Portland team that hadn’t even been playing well, although the Trail Blazers (12-9) are percentage points out of second place in the Pacific Division.

The Clippers have lost 7 of their last 8 games, and if they play tonight as they did Tuesday night, they could go down in infamy as the first team to lose to the Miami Heat.

“Portland’s one team that plays pretty good transition defense,” Clipper guard Norm Nixon said. “They get their hands in on the ball a lot if you don’t pay attention. They come up from behind you, and their big guys are always dunking.”

This was no blind-side swipe, though. It was a head-on collision, plain and simple, and the Clippers are running out of insurance to cover these hazards.

Picking up where they left off when the teams met here Nov. 15, a 125-103 Portland victory, the Trail Blazers led, 23-19, after the first 12 minutes, and then opened the second quarter with a 20-4 burst.

That put Portland ahead, 43-23, and the cushion soon reached 23 points, 54-31, on Danny Young’s jump shot with 3:22 to play in the period.

Several Portland players had a hand in the surge, but the most biggest push came off the bench. Richard Anderson scored 6 points in the 20-4 run, and by halftime had all 8 of his points on 4-of-4 shooting. The former UC Santa Barbara standout also finished with 7 assists, 1 shy of teammate Terry Porter for game-high honors.

Adrian Branch, the former Laker, also had 6 points in the second-quarter rally. He finished with 14 points, one of 6 Trail Blazers to score in double figures, with Kevin Duckworth’s 18 leading the way.

“The key to this game was the play of our bench,” Portland Coach Mike Schuler said.

The way the Clippers played in the second quarter, anyone could have been the key to the Blazer victory.

“We know the second quarter was when we buried ourselves,” Nixon said. “Once they went to the substitutes, we got beat on the transition game, collectively.”

Portland, winning for the seventh time in 8 home games, shot 56% from the field en route to a 58-41 halftime lead. Outscored 35-22 in the second quarter, the Clippers responded with 40%--and 17 turnovers.

The Clippers never got closer than 16 points in the second half, rallying to reach that low-water mark several times down the stretch.

They finished at 47.7% from the field, the eighth time in 9 games they have shot fewer than 50%. Also, they had 30 turnovers, still 3 away from their most of the season. “After the second quarter, I thought we had a decent flow to the game,” Coach Gene Shue said.

Clipper Notes

Benoit Benjamin, ejected from of the Nov. 15 game here after a third-quarter flagrant foul on Jerome Kersey, said his return made for special feelings. Benjamin, booed almost every time he touched the ball, is still bothered by the actions of Portland Coach Mike Schuler, who went on the court and exchanged words with the Clipper center after the incident. “I’ll be a little more motivated because this is where I started to go downhill a little, after I got kicked out of the game,” Benjamin said. “I’ll have a little extra to show people that I can get back on top of my game.” He responded by scoring a team-high 18 points, but he also had 5 rebounds and 4 fouls in 27 minutes. Benjamin, who admitted the hard collision under the basket with Kersey shook him a bit emotionally, said after the first game that he would complain to the league office about Schuler. He hasn’t yet, but he said before Tuesday’s game that he plans to follow through. . . . Ken Norman added 15 points for the Clippers, in their second-lowest point production of the season. Only the 91 at Cleveland was lower.