Clipper Skid Hits 12 Despite Coach’s Debut

Don Casey’s day in the sun, his first game as a head coach in the National Basketball Assn., began in the rain.

His morning jog, used partly to work off some of the anxiety that had been building since he was named the Clippers’ interim coach for the remainder of the season, was dampened by heavy showers. Later Wednesday night, the Dallas Mavericks often made his team look as if it were playing in a fog, beating the Clippers, 117-98, before 17,007 fans at Reunion Arena.

But Norm Nixon, a basketball player, not a weatherman, said there was some break in the dark clouds, despite the Clippers suffering their 12th straight loss, 8 of which have been by double figures. Something about a silver lining.

“It’s like we have to go through training camp again in the middle of the season,” Nixon said of the adjustments to the new coach. “These teams are all used to playing with each other, and we’re not.

“But it felt good, and that’s nice. It hadn’t felt good like that in weeks.”

Meaning the change from Gene Shue to Casey has already done some good, at least from the players’ point of view.

“He basically left a lot of it up to us to play,” Nixon said. “He gave us a little freedom to get out and play.”

But the Clippers (10-29) surrendered 42 points in the first quarter to tie the team’s season high, were held to fewer than 100 points for the third time in 4 games, and shot a dismal 40.2% from the field.

Casey’s self-critique went something like this: The offense was “disjointed” and “laboring” and didn’t have much “up” in the planned up-tempo game. The defense, his area of speciality, was better but got bombed in the first 12 minutes of the game.

But, hey, what did you want from a guy who has only been in charge since last Thursday?

Though there was the emotional high that can be expected in the first game with any new coach, there are still some problems Casey must sort out.

The offense not only didn’t run much, it just plain stood around too often. The game was another example of how much the Clippers need another consistent scorer to complement Quintin Dailey, who had a team-high 22 points. Take away his 9-of-18 shooting, and the Clippers made just 38% of their shots.

“Nothing really went well,” Casey admitted.

The only real negative for Dallas, which had lost 9 of its previous 11 games, came in the third quarter when Rolando Blackman dislocated the little finger on his left hand. The Mavericks’ No. 2 scorer is expected to be out 2 to 3 weeks.

Mark Aguirre led Dallas with 24 points, and Derek Harper had 23. James Donaldson added 18 points and 13 rebounds.