Regal Play Lifts Bullets Past Clippers

The 94-foot stage that is Capital Centre hosted another production Thursday night of The King and Them, with the Clippers reduced to bit players and audience, often in wonderment.

The King, as in Bernard, gave a performance unlike the Clippers have seen this season: 45 points on 18-of-30 shooting. Harvey Grant led the rest of Them, the Washington Bullets, with 34 points--tops for his career--and 10 rebounds in a 122-110 victory.

King and the Clippers’ Charles Smith have 52-point games this season, the highest in the NBA, and King was in position to reach 50 again. But he scored only seven points after checking in for the last time with 7:24 remaining.

It was already the most points anyone had scored against the Clippers this season.

“It was the King and Grant show,” Coach Mike Schuler said after the Clippers lost for the 15th time in 18 games and dropped to 12-23 overall. “They gave a clinic on how forwards are supposed to play.”

This was the Clippers’ first regular-season look at King, who concentrated on improving his outside shooting after Jeff Malone was traded to Utah in June. And still people ask about King’s comeback, ask if the blown-out right knee from March of 1985 is still working up to full strength.

So, as always, someone will wonder if he is surprised at scoring 45 points, at scoring 52, at averaging 31.0 without having missed a game all season to take the lead back from Michael Jordan (30.8) and Charles Barkley (30.6) in the chase for the league’s scoring title.

Surprised? He must hide it well.

“No,” King said. “Everything I have done has come as a result of work, study and learning. When you put yourself in position to succeed, you shouldn’t be surprised.

“Nothing ever just happens to me. It (the improvement to his outside game) is something that I worked on on my own. I can say I planned it to some extent in that I knew Jeff was gone and that teams were going to pressure me a great deal more than in the past. . . . If I was going to have to get all my points 10 feet from the basket, it was going to be a very difficult year.”

Said Grant, a candidate to be named the league’s most improved player: “Bernard, he goes out and gets 30 and 40 all the time. My first couple of years it amazed me. Now, he just does it night in and night out.”

Not that there isn’t room for some shock value. This is, after all, a 13th-year forward on one leg cutting up teams with regularity.

“You know why Bernard King is so great?” Schuler said. “He outworks everybody. He was absolutely a terror to defend (before his knee went). Not that he’s a piece of cake now. . . . He out-quicked us several times tonight, and I’m not sure that should have happened.”

Looking to win back-to-back games for the first time since winning three in a row Dec. 1-5, the Clippers got as close as 105-96 late in the game. But the Bullets, who moved into a third-place tie in the Atlantic Division, went on a 12-6 run to put the game away, taking a 117-102 advantage with 2:14 remaining en route to their seventh victory in their last 10 games.

Benoit Benjamin had 24 points and 19 rebounds, both team highs for the Clippers. Ken Norman added 22 and 13, respectively, and Danny Manning had 18 as a substitute.

Clipper Notes

Charles Smith returned to the lineup after missing the last two games with a twisted left knee, going five for 14 with 15 points and one rebound in 30 minutes. “I feel all right, but it’s going to take some games under my belt before I’m 100%,” he said. . . . Cross Orlando’s Scott Skiles off any list of point guards the Clippers are rumored to be interested in, Pat Williams said. “I have not talked to them about him,” the Magic president and general manager said. . . . Gary Grant tied his season high with five steals.