Clippers Hold Off Hornets, 106-100

The Charlotte Hornets almost made a quarter stand up against a whole, but the Clippers, a fraction of their earlier selves down the stretch, found an unlikely equation to win.

The worst free-throw shooting team in the league, the Clippers made six in a row from the line in the last 23 seconds to hold off the Hornets, who scored 46 points in the final quarter, and win, 106-100, Friday night at the Sports Arena.

Any sign of a breather disappeared early in the fourth quarter, when the Clippers quickly moved in position to get the wind knocked out of them.

A 17-point lead evaporated fast enough that the Clipper lineup, four-fifths of it reserves by then, went with it. At 13 points, Coach Mike Schuler put starters Charles Smith and Ron Harper, along with sub-for-a-night Danny Manning, back in, and Gary Grant soon followed. Not that they were exactly able to brush away the suddenly pesky Hornets.

Charlotte was within 73-63 with 8:51 to play, and 83-74 on Kendall Gill’s three-point play with 6:08 left. Clipper concerns were only starting to gain momentum. The Hornets, playing the second night of a back-to-back schedule, pulled to 99-94 and then 100-96 with 24 seconds remaining.

Free throws bailed the Clippers out from there.

“Tonight, the first two quarters were exciting,” said Harper, who finished with a game-high 26. “The last two were boring. Boring as hell. I think the fans were bored. I know the players were bored.”

Schuler considered undisclosed lineup changes before deciding to hold off for the time being--”I just don’t think it would be the thing to do,” he said--but he made an unexpected move to open Friday’s game: Ken Norman instead of Manning at small forward.

Manning had planned to play all along against Charlotte after suffering a sprained left ankle during Wednesday’s loss to Portland, and Schuler said he would start. The switch came when Manning, who was hampered by the same injury during much of training camp, said he would prefer to come off the bench. That gave Norman, who recently spent time on the injured list because of a sprained left ankle, his first start in a month.

Not wanting to play near his average of 29.6 minutes, Manning went 18, making six of nine shots and finishing with 17 points as one of six Clippers in double figures.

“It felt all right,” he said of the ankle.

When he entered the game with 3:54 left in the first quarter, Manning, who made five of six shots against the Trail Blazers, showed no effect from the sore ankle. He made his first three shots as the Clippers opened a 24-13 lead, the highlight coming when he stole the ball from Charlotte’s Kelly Tripucka at the top of the key and sprinted to the other end for a layup.

Not long after, however, the Clippers, closing competition against the Eastern Conference for the season, went cold. It took 4:55 for their first points of the second quarter, those coming on two free throws by Smith, and another half minute before the first field goal, Harper’s bank from the right side.

Charlotte had closed the gap by then, if only temporarily. The Clippers used a 13-4 run over the final 4:13 of the second quarter to take a 44-33 lead at halftime, the second-fewest points they have given up in a half this season. The Hornets did their part by shooting 34.1% (15 of 44) and getting only four assists compared with 10 turnovers.

The Clippers continued to stretch the lead in the third quarter, to 71-54 on Winston Garland’s jumper with 33 seconds left.