Is Fitch Playing Games?

Coach Bill Fitch, who said he was considering changing his starting lineup after the Clippers lost their final three games, declined to reveal who will start tonight.

Guards Malik Sealy and Darrick Martin were scoreless in Saturday’s season-ending, 25-point loss at Seattle. Martin didn’t score in his final two games, missing eight shots.

“I talk a lot,” Fitch said. “If I were going to do it [change the lineup] I wouldn’t tell you today. If I said it the other day, it meant that between now and then maybe those starting guards would read the paper.”

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Utah forward Karl Malone is miffed that the game is starting an hour later than normal because of TV.

“Nobody’s going to watch the Jazz and the Clippers anyway,” Malone said. “Why wait and start so late?”

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Jazz officials are going all out for the playoffs, painting a mural of Malone on a wall of the Delta Center and putting balloons in the rafters.

“We thought about cutting those balloons down,” Fitch said. “When we’re here for regular-season games, this crowd reacts a lot like a playoff crowd.

“We’ve seen every one of those seats filled and we’ve seen guys take the oxygen masks up there [to the top level of the Delta Center]. We know it’s a tough place to play, but the thing that makes it a tough place to play is the quality of their players and how well they play.”