Clippers Spanked by Kings, 136-104 : Pro basketball: Sacramento makes 71.4% of its shots during first quarter and is never threatened.

This was only for history, the latest in the season that the Clippers would have been at .500 since 1980, when the team called San Diego home and most of the current players were in high school.

Instead, the record book will show the Clippers lost Monday night for the seventh time in their last eight tries here, taking their first double-digit defeat since Dec. 1 in a 136-104 trouncing by the Sacramento Kings before 17,014 at Arco Arena.

In a stretch of the schedule that included the Charlotte Hornets and Minnesota Timberwolves, this was supposed to be another easy one for the Clippers. They had beaten Sacramento by 30 points Dec. 2 at Los Angeles, and the Kings came in at 9-27. They had lost six of eight, and were in last place in the Pacific Division.

It was easy, all right. For the Kings.

With Kenny Smith scoring 24 points on 10-of-12 shooting and Wayman Tisdale adding 22, the Kings increased their lead from 26 points in the second quarter to 38 in the third.

Ken Norman led the Clippers (18-20) with 35 points and 12 rebounds. Twenty-three of those points came in the first half, but the game had drifted out of reach even by then.

“Any loss hurts, but it’s not the end of the world,” said Norman, who has averaged 26.7 points and 9.7 rebounds and shot 62.3% in his three games since returning to the starting lineup after an injury.

“We wanted to get to .500 because we want to win every game, and this was a good opportunity, but we can still get to .500. We can go down to San Antonio and Houston and win there.”

By making some adjustments.

“We’ve got to get back on defense, not let them run on the offensive end where they want to run and do the things they want to do,” Norman said.

That was easier said than done Monday night. The Kings (10-27) shot 64.7%, a record for the Sacramento and Kansas City-Omaha versions of the team. They set season bests for points in a game, points in a half (71, in the first) and points in a quarter (41, in the first).

They simply set a pace the Clippers, feeling the loss of Ron Harper, could not come close to matching.

“Obviously, they (the Kings) remembered the last game at the Sports Arena,” Clipper Coach Don Casey said. “This is the first time we didn’t stand up to the challenge.

“We hurried shots. The offense was jumbled. I think the last game and this game give us some indication of how many easy baskets we got from Ron that aren’t there now. I don’t know how much of it is a letdown and how much of it is seeing how much Harper meant to the team, both spiritually and physically.”

The only Clipper lead was at 2-0. From there, Sacramento, which shot 71.4% in the first quarter, went on a 13-2 run. The Kings made 12 of their first 14 shots.

By the second quarter, Casey was already looking for new ideas. In went Michael Young and David Rivers, early appearances for both, but that didn’t help. Nothing did.

“We got some easy baskets early in the game,” Smith said. “We’ve always been getting easy shots lately in games, but they’re not always falling. Tonight, they were falling.”

The lead increased to 54-35, and the Kings went on another tear. Rodney McCray’s three-point jumper as the 24-second clock expired made the score 57-35. Kenny Smith then capitalized on a bad pass by Gary Grant, scoring from the left baseline. On the next possession, Smith stole a Tom Garrick pass and went all the way for an uncontested dunk. It was 61-35 with 5:39 left in the half.

The Clippers tried almost everything to slow the Kings, even tossing in some unintentional road blocks.

Casey became an unwitting participant late in the second quarter. Ralph Sampson, having just missed a shot along the baseline, turned upcourt, only a little too wide. He tumbled into Casey, who was kneeling in front of the bench.

After they became untangled, the 7-foot-4 Sampson got back in the game. Casey simply looked up; he and the Clippers had been steamrolled.

Clipper Notes

For the second consecutive game, Benoit Benjamin missed the shoot-around for personal reasons, so Joe Wolf started at center. . . . The Clippers play at San Antonio Wednesday.