Clippers’ 7th in a Row Takes a Little Climbing : Pro basketball: After falling behind by 19 points, they beat Jazz, 102-101, in overtime.

Already impressive, the Clippers officially reached amazing Friday night.

Two games after rallying from an 18-point deficit at Golden State, then atop the Pacific, the Clippers got jumped early by the Utah Jazz and roared back again to beat another division leader, 102-101, in overtime at the Sports Arena.

The hole this time was 19 points deep at halftime. The opponent this time came in with a five-game winning streak and 14 victories, tied for second most in the league. The obstacle course this time was more challenging, because the Clippers played without Charles Smith, sidelined because of pain and swelling in his right knee.

Only under these circumstances could extending a winning streak to seven games, the longest in Los Angeles Clipper history, become a secondary consideration.

Doc Rivers compared it to winning a 15-round fight for the heavyweight title. Then he fell into the proper sport but kept the message.

“It was like we just won the NBA championship,” he said of the Clipper locker room just after the game. “Everyone was jumping around. We were saying things like, ‘Big win!’ and ‘Gut win!’ It was a gut win.”

Said Olden Polynice: “I don’t think it’s even so much that we won our seventh in a row. It was how we did it. That was what the excitement was all about.”

The Clippers (13-10) forced the overtime at 94-94 when James Edwards, fouled with 1.4 seconds left in regulation, swished the first free throw and came up short on the second. Once into the extra five-minute period, they never trailed.

The game was last tied at 98, when Rivers’ baseline jump shot put the Clippers ahead for good, 100-98.

Utah (14-9) had its chances. Thebest of those came after Jeff Malone’s free throw following an illegal defense call made it 102-101. Tyrone Corbin missed a shot from the right side and Loy Vaught grabbed the rebound. With a traffic jam of Jazz players swiping at the ball, Danny Manning alertly called time out.

The Clippers, who improved to 3-0 in overtime games, didn’t get a basket out of that possession, but all the Jazz could put together in the final 14 seconds was Malone’s missed jump shot from the free-throw line with about a second left.

“They were the aggressors in the second half,” Utah Coach Jerry Sloan said. “We were a little sluggish. That’s not the way you’re supposed to play in the third quarter if you expect to win.”

The Clippers fell behind in the first quarter, 33-14, and got no closer than 40-31 in the second.

Staring at the second 19-point deficit at halftime, the Clippers went to work for real.

First, they used a 15-3 charge midway through the third quarter to close within 68-65. After the Jazz momentarily held their ground, the Clippers cut the deficit to 76-74 on James Edwards’ two free throws with 28 seconds left.

They needed only until the first possession of the fourth quarter to tie the game, Ron Harper grabbing a rebound and converting it into a short off-balance bank shot from the left side. They finally got the lead, 81-80, on a three-pointer from the right side by Harper with 9:44 remaining.

Smith, who had played a key role in five other victories since returning from arthroscopic surgery, could only watch. This was his first setback in rehabilitation, and the medical staff says the decision to keep him out was a more of a precaution than a necessity.

Trainer Keith Jones termed the continued swelling and pain, expected in such a case, a minor concern and insisted this does not portend of future problems or indicate the Clippers may have brought Smith back too soon or loaded him down with too much playing time.