Beauty Is in the Eye of Utah’s Malone : Game 4: He sinks 22 of 24 free throws without regard to distractions of fans at Anaheim Convention Center.

Every time Karl Malone stepped to the free-throw line in an NBA playoff game against the Clippers Sunday, fans in the balcony of the Anaheim Convention Center held up posters of scantily clad women to distract him.

“I’m married,” Malone said. “That . . . don’t bother me. I see it all the time.”

Malone maintained his concentration, making a playoff personal-best 22 of 24 free throws and scoring a career playoff high of 44 points in a 115-107 loss.

“My wife (Kay) is beautiful,” Malone said. “I don’t look at that . . . when I’m playing. It’s the truth.”

Although the Clippers have won two in a row to tie the best-of-five series at two games apiece, they have been unable to stop Malone, who has averaged 32.5 points in the first four games. They didn’t check Malone any better Sunday. He made 11 of 18 shots and grabbed 11 rebounds.

“I think we have to do a better job on Karl (in Game 5 tonight),” Clipper Coach Larry Brown said. “We tried everything, but he draws fouls so well and he’s got people that find him when he’s open. We didn’t have a lot of answers for him.

“When you get to see Karl in a series, night in and night out, you realize how great he is. It’s unfortunate that, playing in Utah, a lot of people don’t recognize what a talent he is.”

Malone, who scored 23 points in the first half, was at his best in the second quarter, when he scored 15.

Trailing by 12 points in the third quarter, the Jazz got back into the game by going to Malone. He had 14 points in the final quarter, making four of six shots from the floor and all six of his free throws.

Malone, who goes through the same ritual before each free throw, taking a deep breath before he shoots, loves to shoot them.

“They’ve got 30 or 40 fouls to give, and I’ll use them all up,” Malone said. “Some people might squawk about me shooting a lot of free throws, but every one of them I shot, they (fouled me). I could squawk about the ones they didn’t call.”

Malone didn’t even complain when Clipper center Olden Polynice fouled him hard, knocking Malone to the court.

“I know Polynice, and I know what guys try to do,” Malone said. “I can handle hard fouls. And I can handle, to some degree, malicious fouls. If guys try to undercut me or do something totally stupid, I can handle all that. I know their game plan and I know Olden’s game plan, but I’m not going to let that bother me.

“I know what they’re going to do before the game even starts. It’s my job to keep my head and just keep playing. That’s all I want to do.”

Polynice, who maintains that he’s one of the few players in the NBA who can effectively check Malone, said it’s difficult to keep Malone from going to the free-throw line.

“When you have a guy like (John) Stockton throwing you the ball three out of four times down the court, it’s going to be tough on anybody to guard him,” Polynice said. “Karl does a lot of good things, but Stockton makes it all possible. That’s what a lot of people don’t realize. We’ve got to attack Stockton and try to get him in foul trouble.

“Even though (Malone) scored 44 points, I think he had to earn every last point he got. But the way he plays he’s going to get a lot of (foul) calls.”

Although Malone surpassed his previous playoff high of 40 points, set against Portland last May, Utah Coach Jerry Sloan said, “I’ve seen him play better.”

“Obviously, I’ve been with him for his whole career and he’s had better games,” Sloan said.

The Jazz seemed flat at the start, but Malone refused to blame the four-day delay and the change of arena caused by the unrest in the Los Angeles area.

“It had absolutely nothing to do with this game,” Malone said. “We are not going to use that as an excuse. The last thing anybody in this locker room is going to do is put the blame for the loss on the delay. We’re not going to use all the events this week as an excuse.”

Malone said it was surreal watching Los Angeles explode.

“Watching (the riots on TV) I was thinking ‘This can’t be happening here,’ ” Malone said. “I’m used to going to the video store and getting a video and seeing that kind of stuff. It was incredible and it was sad. But we’ve got to stick together as people and not skin color. When we do that, things will be OK.”