Seattle Is Better by a Third

The Clippers walked right into a trap.

Forced into 23 turnovers, two shy of their season worst, by the Seattle SuperSonics’ relentless trapping defense, the Clippers lost to the SuperSonics for the 14th consecutive time, 102-86, Friday night before 17,072 at the KeyArena.

“We waved a white flag and didn’t know we were waving it,” Clipper Coach Bill Fitch said. “They’re a good basketball team. There are certain teams in this league that when they get you down they stomp you, and they’re one of them.”

The SuperSonics stomped the Clippers in the third quarter, 38-11, after the Clippers had taken a 51-48 halftime lead.

In the third quarter, the Clippers shot only 26.3% and had seven turnovers, which Seattle converted into 17 points.

“There was a stretch in that quarter where they got every call and they hit every shot,” Fitch said of the SuperSonics, who shot 66.7% in the third quarter.

“I’m going to give the opponent credit for really playing some defense and I’m going to give ourselves a spanking for not having the poise.”

Guard Malik Sealy, who had 22 points but only four in the second half, said the Clippers self-destructed.

“When we start off and we miss a couple of shots, too often we don’t do anything else and that’s exactly what happened to us in the third quarter,” Sealy said. “We missed a couple of easy shots and we let that affect every other part of our game.

“They killed us and we couldn’t dig out from under it. They were raining three-balls like they were going out of style. I thought I saw somebody from the stands hit one.”

Sealy, who made six of eight shots in the first half, missed five of six shots in the second half as the Clippers were outscored, 54-35.

“What happened to me in the second half?” Sealy asked. “ ‘Sealy left the building!’ ”

Center Kevin Duckworth, who missed three of four shots and had two points and five rebounds, took much of the blame as the Clipper frontcourt was outscored, 33-11.

“I’ve killed us the last two games,” said Duckworth, who scored a total of four points Thursday and Friday nights. “When you’re not contributing and you’re not helping out, sometimes you feel worthless.

“I’m just not doing the job. I don’t know what it is the last couple of games. I have no one to blame but myself. It’s disgusting. I should be able to contribute to this team a hell of a lot better than what I’ve been doing the last two games.”

Forward Rodney Rogers, who scored a season-high 27 points in Thursday night’s 102-93 loss to the Washington Bullets, suffered a shoulder injury against the Bullets and spent the pregame warmups in the training room getting treatment.

Rogers missed six of seven shots and had three points and no rebounds in 24 minutes. He was also ineffective on defense against Detlef Schrempf, who scored 22 points.

Early on, it looked as if the Clippers were in for another blowout here when they fell behind by nine points in the first quarter.

However, Sealy scored seven of his 14 first-quarter points in a 9-0 run as the Clippers got back into the game.

But the SuperSonics increased their defensive pressure in the second half and ran the Clippers into Puget Sound.

“Our defense wasn’t up to par in the first half,” Schrempf said. “In the third quarter we stepped it up, trapped hard and got some steals. We allowed Sealy way too many easy looks in the first half and I don’t think we gave him any easy looks in the second half.”