Clippers Finish Meekly

The heckler was incredulous.

“You guys are in the playoffs?” he screamed at the Clipper bench during Saturday night’s season finale against the Seattle SuperSonics.

Yes, the Clippers are in the playoffs, but they’re not going in on a good note.

One night after losing to the Lakers by 28 points, the Clippers ended the regular season by getting embarrassed by the Seattle SuperSonics, 125-100, before a sellout crowd of 17,072 at KeyArena.

The victory left the defending Western Conference champion SuperSonics (57-25) with a half-game lead over the Lakers (56-25) for first place in the Pacific Division.

The Lakers, who hold the tiebreaker over the SuperSonics, can win their first division title since 1989-90 by defeating the Portland Trail Blazers today.

After watching his Clippers (36-46) lose their final three games to the Houston Rockets, the Lakers and the SuperSonics, who does Coach Bill Fitch favor to win the Western Conference?

“The Clippers in an upset,” Fitch joked. “That’s who I’d like to see win it. The Lakers right now have got things going for them. Today’s game in Portland will give everybody a good barometer.

“I guess the ones that impressed us the most talent-wise are L.A., Seattle and Houston. They’re all very, very good. It’s hard to believe that we drew somebody better [the Utah Jazz].

“Seattle did a great job tonight. They don’t have the depth or the size that the Lakers have, but I give them a chance on experience.”

Forward Sam Perkins thinks the SuperSonics can return to the NBA finals.

“It seems like everybody is counting us out,” Perkins said. “That’s fine, I guess. We’re just going to go out and prove everybody wrong.”

The SuperSonics got a scare when all-star guard Gary Payton had to be helped off the court after he fell when he was fouled by Terry Dehere with 8:50 remaining in the third quarter.

But Payton wasn’t injured and he returned to get 25 points and eight assists.

Shawn Kemp made eight of 12 shots and had 22 points and 10 rebounds and Detlef Schrempf had 24 points.

The Clippers, who fell behind the Lakers by 21 points in the first quarter Friday, trailed the SuperSonics by 20 points at the end of the first quarter and 21 at halftime. They were behind by 27 at the end of the third quarter and by 35 five minutes into the fourth quarter.

“I don’t believe this,” swingman Bo Outlaw shouted to a teammate on the bench.

Believe it.

The Clippers, who allowed the Lakers to shoot a season-high 60%, let the SuperSonics shoot 60% in the first quarter and 62.5% in the first half. The SuperSonics wound up shooting 56.1% and came within one point of tying their season high for points in a game.

“We’re still playing regular-season defense and the three teams we’ve played against are experienced playoff teams, and they’ve taken it up a notch,” Fitch said. “We’ve got to get to that notch.”

Clipper guards Darrick Martin and Malik Sealy were scoreless as the Clipper starters were outscored, 85-33. Martin and Sealy each missed six shots.

The Clippers need to get more production from Martin and Sealy to have any chance of beating the Jazz, who feature guards John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek.

Fitch may alter his rotation for the playoffs.

“We have to figure out who the starting guards are going to be by next Thursday,” Fitch said. “We’re going to go in the maintenance shop and if we have to do an overhaul, we’ll do it.

“I think anybody that is in uniform has got a chance at playing time. Who starts and who doesn’t isn’t important to me.”

Fitch started Pooh Richardson and Dehere in place of Martin and Sealy in the third quarter. It was the second consecutive game that Fitch has benched Martin at the start of the second half.

Richardson made six of 10 shots and had 15 points and four assists, and Dehere had eight points.