Clippers Can’t Take Heat or Mourning

Want to know why the Clippers picked up center Isaac Austin in a trade Thursday?

Just ask anybody who saw Thursday’s game against the Miami Heat.

Or, more specifically, ask Heat center Alonzo Mourning.

With Austin still awaiting a physical before he can suit up, Mourning took advantage of the best Coach Bill Fitch could throw out there, hitting his first six shots, scoring a game-high 28 points and grabbing 11 rebounds to lead the way to an easy 89-80 victory over the struggling Clippers at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim before a crowd of 13,157.

And Mourning accomplished it in only 33 minutes of playing time.

Of course after the Clippers scored a mere nine points in the third quarter of a game in which they never led and trailed by as much as 21 points, Miami Coach Pat Riley saw no reason to give Mourning a full night of work.

Neither Maurice Taylor, Lorenzen Wright nor Keith Closs were able to supply enough defense to slow Mourning down.

The only Clipper center to impress Fitch Thursday was Stojko Vrankovic.

And he only played three minutes.

“Stojko is the only guy that looked to me like he was trying to put a message out,” Fitch said. “He did as much at that position tonight as other guys have with more minutes. Sometimes, competition for jobs makes guys play better.”

Perhaps even more impressive than Mourning’s total were the career-high 20 rebounds collected by Miami’s P.J. Brown.

“He’s done a great job,” said Riley of Brown. “That’s why everyone wanted him in deals. For us to get anybody, we had to give him up.”

Presumably, Riley didn’t mean that guard Brent Barry, acquired from the Clippers in Thursday’s trade, was therefore a nobody.

Mourning said that it was tough putting aside the trade, completed just before Thursday’s 3 p.m. PST deadline, in order to prepare for the Clippers.

“We had a couple of distractions right before the game,” Mourning said, “but we gathered ourselves even though we lost a friend and a good player.”

Riley emphasized that he allowed Austin to depart only because he felt certain the Heat wouldn’t be able to re-sign their backup center, who will be a free agent at season’s end.

“Let me say that Ike Austin [is a] quality player, quality person,” Riley said. “He’s really going to help them. He has great skills. But I never felt that we were ever--nor were we led to believe that we were--anything other than a long shot [to resign him].

The victory was the fourth in a row for the Atlantic Division-leading Heat.

The loss was the fifth in a row for the Clippers, led in scoring by Taylor (17 points) and guard Eric Piatkowski (16).

Wright managed to pull down 15 rebounds and Murray had 11 on a night when the Clippers, despite Brown’s efforts, still equaled the Heat on the boards, each team grabbing 47.

But, said Fitch, don’t be fooled by those totals.

“Stats lie when you look at 47 and 47 rebounds,” he said. “The game wasn’t even on the boards. In the fourth quarter, they kicked our butts on putbacks.

“Look at the first four shots we took in the second half. You figure you should make two of those with your eyes closed. It was all downhill from there.”

Now Fitch can only hope Austin will lead the long march back up hill.