Clippers Feel Right at Home : Pro basketball: They win at Portland again, 96-86, extending the Trail Blazers’ Memorial Coliseum losing streak to four games.

This used to be a terrible place for the Clippers, site of 29 consecutive losses before a victory in March of 1991.

But with their 96-86 victory over the Trail Blazers on Sunday, the Clippers continued to turn that streak around by winning for the third time in four games at Portland Memorial Coliseum.

“Evolution,” said Danny Manning, who had a game-high 22 points and a team-high 10 rebounds. “Evolution.”

Their attitude about coming here has naturally changed with the outcomes.

“Every time we would come here, we’d always get blown out,” Gary Grant said. “It got to the point where we would come in expecting to get blown out. But the last four or five times, we have always given them a game, and now we’re winning regularly.”

The Clippers have also beaten the Trail Blazers three of the last five times overall. One of the losses was Friday at the Sports Arena, when Portland closed with a 23-8 run and a 43-point fourth quarter to erase an eight-point deficit with 4 1/2 minutes remaining.

The Clippers again led by eight at that same point, 88-80, in the rematch, but did not falter. To the contrary, they built the lead to 94-82 with 2:25 remaining.

Portland’s 86 points was the best showing by the Clippers’ defense this season, surpassing the 88 at Houston on Nov. 24. It was also the lowest total for the Trail Blazers’ offense.

“I thought the Phoenix game was kind of a gut-check game,” Clipper Coach Larry Brown said of the Suns’ easy 122-100 victory Wednesday. “We had beaten them twice, we were coming into their place, we had played the night before and they were waiting for us.

“I said to the team I thought this game had a lot of the same ingredients. They were relieved to beat us after five days off and had lost three in a row at home. That hadn’t happened in years. Plus, the game was on (national) TV. We responded really well. That was a good feeling.

“A big win. We played great. We defended pretty well, rebounded well, and Stanley (Roberts), that might have been his best (game). I’ve said that 15 times this season, but he really played well.”

Said Roberts, who had 20 points and seven rebounds and made one especially nice spin move in the low post against Buck Williams, regarded as one of the game’s best defenders at that spot: “I would rate it close. I did some of the things it takes--clogging the middle, going for shots, getting rebounds.”

The Trail Blazers lost for the fifth time in six games, the fourth time in a row at home. It is the first time that has happened since January of 1989, predating the Rick Adelman era.

“Because we won a game and played very well in the fourth quarter in L.A. we seemed to sit back and say, ‘Well, it’s going to happen again here,’ ” Adelman said. “It is very difficult to beat a team two times in a row.”

Rod Strickland led the Trail Blazers with 16 points off the bench. Clyde Drexler added 14 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and three steals. But Terry Porter did not have an assist in 33 minutes.

Clipper Notes

The family of former UCLA standout Tracy Murray issued a statement criticizing the Trail Blazers for the fine and suspension levied against the player. Murray and fellow rookie Dave Johnson were fined and suspended for three games without pay for their alleged involvement in a teen-age sex scandal in a Utah hotel. No charges have been filed in the incident. “Inexplicably, the Trail Blazers decided to play investigator, judge, jury and executioner by penalizing our young son and others who had just been exonerated in Salt Lake City,” the family said.