A Blast to Begin the Trip : Pro basketball: Clippers obey Brown, their frustrated coach, and get past the Bullets, 117-98.

Clipper Coach Larry Brown spoke to his players before Thursday night’s game against Washington about having fun.

They followed through by running through the injury-riddled Bullets, 117-98, before 5,834 at the Capital Centre as Danny Manning had 30 points, Mark Jackson added 15 assists and Stanley Roberts 15 rebounds.

Mission accomplished.

“If you had the transition game going and the dunks and running and the high-fives, you’d have fun, too,” said Ron Harper, who did his part with 20 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and four blocks.

The four-game trip, the last extended journey of the season, was off to a good start, but controversy, even the smallest kind, seems to have followed the Clippers. It stems from Brown’s comments during an interview aired Tuesday on Roy Firestone’s “Up Close” show on ESPN.

Brown was critical of Clipper management, saying: “I don’t know if we have a plan.” He also stated, “If I were to ask Elgin Baylor or (owner Donald T.) Sterling or (Executive Vice President) Harley Frankel or Andy Roeser (vice president for business operations)--which I probably have to most of the time--who would be on our team next year, I don’t think I’d get the same answer from everyone.”

Brown was also complimentary of Baylor, the general manager, and Sterling during the interview, and he said Thursday that the comments have been blown out of proportion. But there is no question he struck a nerve.

“I don’t want to make any comment,” Baylor said.

Said Brown: “I didn’t realize how big a deal it would be.”

Brown said he has no rift with management and, as far as Baylor goes: “I look at him as an ally. I look at him as a guy I respect. I look at him as one of the reasons I came here.”

But his disappointment at the Clippers’ still having five key players who are potential free agents is apparent.

“I’ve talked to Elgin about this,” he said before the game. “It’s not something I have not told him 50 times. I think every coach has a right to know who is going to be on their team.

“I don’t know if it’s frustration. All I kind of said to myself once the trading deadline was over was, ‘These are the guys I’ve got, and we’re going to make it the best team we can be.’ I’m frustrated when we don’t play well, and all the distractions have not helped. But the only thing I’ve got control over is how we play. I’m not going to get frustrated anymore.”

Management does not have a problem with his frustration level. But there is a problem with going public with it.

Against Washington, the Clippers took control in the second quarter, went ahead by 20 points during the third quarter and never led by fewer than 10 the rest of the way. John Williams, in his first game back at the Capital Centre since being traded by the Bullets after six tumultuous seasons, was greeted by boos but made five of eight shots and finished with 12 points.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he said of the crowd. “I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to get a win.”

Said Brown: “I thought it would be worse. But as the game went on, they (the fans) kind of forgot about it and that was nice.”

Clipper Notes

Only 16 hours after making the cross-country trip to Baltimore with his teammates, Gary Grant, originally listed as day to day because of a sprained right ankle, returned to Los Angeles on Thursday morning after additional swelling developed. He might miss the last three games of the trip, though no determination will be made until Saturday. “I think it would be silly to rush him back,” Coach Larry Brown said. . . . With Kiki Vandeweghe also home because of a strained Achilles’ tendon, the Clippers have only 10 players available. . . . The Clippers were prepared this time for Robin Ficker, the heckler who sits behind the visitors’ bench at Bullet games. As the final minutes ticked off, some players waved an article from the Montgomery County Journal, which detailed Ficker being barred from his home after his wife filed a petition claiming the attorney was abusive and threatening to her and their 16-year-old daughter. Ficker seemed to take it in stride.