At Home, It’s a Case of All That Jazz : Game 5: Utah plays a fourth-quarter jam session to end season for Clippers, 98-89. Record in Salt Lake City becomes 40-4 with Seattle series ahead.

The improbable became the impossible for the Clippers, who Monday night found a mountain a little too high to conquer.

They were king of the hill against Utah for nearly 3 1/2 quarters in the fifth, and deciding, game of their first-round NBA playoff series. Then they fell all the way into the off-season, thanks to the 98-89 defeat at the Delta Center that eliminated the Clippers and sent the Jazz into the Western Conference semifinals against Seattle.

The Clippers’ emotions ran predictably toward bittersweet. There was a mixture of pride at the season just played, but disappointment at the vacation ahead. They bounced back from a bad first half to reach No. 7 in the Western Conference, bounced back from an 0-2 deficit to force a Game 5 in this series . . . and then had a 15-point lead in the first quarter dissolve in the game that mattered most.

“We’re down from the standpoint that we really, honestly felt that we would beat this team in their gym and go on to play Seattle,” Charles Smith said. “We really thought we had this ballclub, the majority of the time. We just couldn’t lock it up.”

Utah led for the first time, 81-79, with 9:04 to play, but then the Jazz wasted little time in gaining complete control. Utah pushed the lead to seven points when David Benoit, used sparingly in the series but a huge factor in the second half, hit a three-pointer with 4:29 to play. It became 11 points with 2:44 to play on another three-point play, this time on Jeff Malone’s lay-in and foul conversion.

The Clippers never made much more than a final dent in that. It didn’t help that Danny Manning fouled out with 3:04 to play after scoring a team-high 24 points, but that paled in comparison to problems down the stretch. The Clippers hit two of 21 shots in the fourth quarter. That’s 9.5%. They scored 12 points in the fourth quarter.

“We went to the hoop 15 times in the fourth quarter, and nothing happened about 13 times,” Coach Larry Brown said. “We didn’t get to the free-throw line. We didn’t (do) anything.”

Benoit finished with a season-high 16 points, all but four in the second half. That helped offset John Stockton’s nine assists against five turnovers on a foul-plagued night. Karl Malone hit only five of 17 shots, though he had 16 rebounds and five blocks.

The Jazz reserves were a major factor, led by Benoit, who played 22 minutes in the first four games combined, then 33 on Monday. Mike Brown had 10 rebounds in 17 minutes, and Tyrone Corbin scored eight and grabbed eight rebounds.

A Game 5 was the last thing Utah needed, if only for reputation’s sake. The Jazz lost the Midwest Division title on the last day of the regular season in each of the previous two years and often were diagnosed as being faint of heart in the playoffs. Utah lost to Golden State in 1987 after being ahead, 2-0, and was swept by the Warriors in 1989 in a big upset.

But the last 12 months went a long way toward changing that image. The process started with the second round of the 1991 playoffs, a 4-1 loss to Portland. Utah showed plenty of fight in coming back from several deficits to press the Trail Blazers. Then, the Jazz cruised to the Midwest championship this season by eight games and carried a 37-4 record at home.

Now this.

Taking a 2-0 lead against the Clippers, losing the next two on the road and coming home to a finale. The Jazz had gone to a Game 5 in four of its previous eight post-season trips and was 2-2. Three teams had lost a best-of-five series after winning the first two games, and Utah was one. And, for those who believe in omens, the last three Game 5s the Jazz have participated in were won by the visiting team.

All this pregame talk was fine with the Clippers, loose in the locker room before tipoff and using the phrase “the pressure is on them” as though it was an official party platform.

The Clippers played the part for real, taking a 14-2 lead when the Jazz failed to score on its first nine possessions. The lead became 20-7, then 26-11 when Stockton got two quick fouls. The advantage was 30-18 at the end of a first quarter in which Utah had seven turnovers and two assists.

The Clippers led, 52-40, at halftime.

The Jazz closed within three points in the third quarter, the latest at 67-64, with 2:28 remaining. It got a three-pointer from Benoit with 1.4 seconds left, cutting the Clippers’ lead to 77-73 heading into the final period.

It was the sign of things to come.

“I kind of sensed we were in trouble and really had to step up when Benoit even started trying ‘threes,’ ” Smith said. “Then he made them. We weren’t actually guarding him because we didn’t think he’d make them.”

Think again. Take all summer if you need it.

“I thought our team played about as well as we could play,” Brown said.

It just wasn’t well enough.

A CHANCE: Utah’s David Benoit had played sparingly until starring in Game 5. C7