All of Fitch’s Combinations Are Picked Apart by the Jazz

“What’s the next combination, Bill?” a heckler said, taunting Clipper Coach Bill Fitch during Saturday night’s game against the Utah Jazz.

Trailing by 24 points in the third quarter, Fitch kept shuttling players into the game, trying to find the right combination.

But Fitch, who played everyone, never found one that worked as the Jazz ended the Clippers’ two-game winning streak with a 107-94 loss before 19,911 at the Delta Center.

“We just got the heck beat out of us,” Fitch said. “Utah’s a good basketball team. They make a lot of teams look bad and tonight they made us look bad.”

The Clippers were coming off emotionally draining back-to-back victories over Phoenix and Sacramento, their closest rivals for the final two Western Conference playoff spots. The Clippers (29-37) have a 1 1/2-game lead over the Kings for the seventh spot.

And Fitch hopes they don’t finish eighth because they probably would have to play the Jazz, who have the best record (51-17) in the Western Conference.

“We all look forward to going to the dance, but I’d just as soon dance with somebody besides the Jazz,” Fitch said. “I think they’re going to be a lot of teams that would like to play dodgeball.”

Forward Karl Malone said the Clippers, who lost three of four games to the Jazz, could pose a test.

“If we face those guys it’s going to be a tough series because those guys play hard and they never give up,” said Malone. “They’re a physical team and they’re going to come out ready to play. If we face them in the first round of the playoffs, we’re going to have to be ready to play. We have to have our thinking caps on and can’t be lazy with the basketball.”

Malone didn’t mention the Clippers’ poor shooting.

Lamond Murray missed his first eight shots, Malik Sealy misfired on 10 of 16, and Brent Barry was off target on five of his first six.

“We didn’t hit many shots out there and we didn’t do anything defensively . . . which is what’s supposed to happen when you don’t do anything out there,” Sealy said. “It was just one of those nights.”

Reserve forward Rodney Rogers was one of the few Clippers who played well.

Rogers made six of 10 shots and had 14 points and four rebounds in the first half and started the second half in place of slumping center Lorenzen Wright.

Rogers finished with 18 points.

Malone scored 20 points as the Jazz extended its winning streak to six games and defeated the Clippers for the 14th consecutive time at Salt Lake City. The Clippers haven’t won a regular-season game here since April 18, 1989.

“When the game was on the line I thought Malone was fantastic during that stretch,” Fitch said.

Malone delivered in the first half, when Utah led by as many as 21 points. He made nine of 11 shots and scored 19 points in 18 minutes as the Jazz shot 61.9% in the first half.

“It was very competitive in the first quarter and all of a sudden [Malone] starts delivering Christmas mail early, I guess,” Fitch said. “After that we were just playing catch-up all night.”