They’re Finally on Front End of Blowout : Clippers: A 114-84 victory over Kings gives them momentum for next game against the Lakers.

The only people who could trip up the Clippers Saturday night were the Clipper cheerleaders.

Ron Harper, who hit just about everything else, hit them, too. He tumbled over them, actually, after turning upcourt after a three-point jumper from the left corner in the second quarter.

Sacramento could only have hoped to offer such resistance.

The Clippers, with the Suns behind them and the Lakers ahead, got the flip side and didn’t waste the opportunity, routing the Kings, 114-84, before 10,530 at the Sports Arena.

The Clippers (5-9) gained a little momentum heading into Tuesday’s game at the Forum and broke a three-game losing streak in a big way. They shot 56.8%, the second-best performance of the season, and the 30-point difference is the biggest margin of victory of 1989-90 and the largest since a 34-point win Jan. 18, 1987.

The Clippers led, 28-22, after the first quarter and then opened the second with a 19-4 run, which included Harper’s tiptoe through the cheerleaders. With 6:48 to play in the half, the cushion was 47-26.

Finally, when Gary Grant hit a straight-away jumper with 2.1 seconds left, it went to 61-38. In the second half, the Clippers went up by as many as 35 points.

“It feels good when it happens that way,” said Grant, who had 13 points and 12 assists. “It just doesn’t happen enough for us.”

This time, though, everything seemed to go right for the Clippers. Most pleasing had to be a break in Harper’s shooting--good one game, bad the next, but never consistent from the outside since coming to Los Angeles.

That changed in his first game of his concentrating on the jump shot. The result: eight of 11 from the field and 19 points, tying Sacramento’s Rodney McCray for game-high honors without even playing in the fourth quarter.

“When I first came here, I was told to go to the basket a lot,” said Harper, a dangerous player on the drive who was practically being left alone by defenses lately from 15 feet out. “I wasn’t getting the chance to shoot outside much. Every time I was on the wing it was go to the basket, go to the basket.

“I feel like I need to start shooting from the outside to get back into the flow I was in at Cleveland. I felt very comfortable earlier in the year, and then I came here and I was taking it to the basket more. I need to show people I can still hit the jumper.”

Harper’s inactive fourth quarter was not unusual as Coach Don Casey used all 12 players. Of the starters, three sat out the final quarter, while Joe Wolf played three minutes and Charles Smith five.

Indeed, all the important work was completed early. All that remained by the fourth quarter was whether the Clippers could score their largest margin of victory of the season. They did, bettering the 24 set Nov. 26 against Chicago at the Sports Arena.

Sacramento, which played without No. 1 draft pick Pervis Ellison, a late scratch as starting center because of a sore right foot, shot 37.9%, this after a season-low 37.3% in Tuesday’s loss to Detroit. The Kings’ highest-scoring quarter was 23 (the fourth), and they got only 18 in the second.

“We’re struggling as a team,” guard Danny Ainge said after his four-for-14 performance. “This is just the bottom. Frustration has set in on every player.”

The Clippers would like to feel they contributed to the Kings’ misery in some manner.

“After a while, they got down and the (Clipper) shots got easier,” Casey said. “They weren’t as contested.

“We really defensed them well, which we have to do because we’re still jelling together on offense.”

It didn’t show Saturday, even though the Clippers are in the midst of playing four games in five nights.

“We jumped out early and we didn’t let them back into the game,” the Clippers’ Ken Norman said. “We did the same things in the second half that we did in the first half.”

Clipper Notes

Reserve forward Michael Young watched Saturday’s television coverage of the Heisman Trophy ceremony with special interest, having been an acquaintance of Houston quarterback Andre Ware for about a year. “When he won it, I jumped up and cheered,” said Young, who is from Houston. “My wife thought I went crazy. I was glad to see him win it.” Young, meanwhile, continues to provide an offensive spark in limited time off the bench. The free-agent signee, a former member of Phi Slama Jama on the Houston teams that also included Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, is shooting 54% and averaging 7.6 points and 3.5 rebounds in 15 meetings an outing.