Upstart Clippers Win Their Third in a Row--No Kidding

Can these be the Clippers?

“Well, it’s not the Philadelphia 76ers,” guard Brent Barry said.

One night after posting their biggest victory of the season, the Clippers outscored the Dallas Mavericks, 16-0, in the opening 4:40 and extended their winning streak to a season-best three games, 97-88, Saturday night before 5,133 at the Sports Arena.

Undefeated in 1998, the Clippers’ have fashioned their winning streak against three of the NBA’s worst teams, the Denver Nuggets, the Golden State Warriors and the Mavericks.

“We’ve just got to keep it up,” said Barry, who scored 21 points. “We’ve got an opportunity to win the next three or four games if we continue to play with this sort of effort.

“If we can just put a little bit of a run together, we can get some confidence.”

The Clippers, who are 2-0 against the Warriors, are now 2-0 against the Mavericks, who have lost 15 in a row.

Those teams have a combined record of 12-49.

But Clipper Coach Bill Fitch said such statistics are meaningless.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “You can say our losing streak came at the expense of the best teams in the league. What’s the difference? In this league it doesn’t make any difference.”

Forward Lorenzen Wright, who had 23 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks and three steals in Friday night’s 94-79 victory over Golden State, was a late scratch because of a sprained left knee.

“This team will always miss Lorenzen,” Fitch said. “We won without him, but the guys put out a little extra effort. To me, the happiest thing is that guys like [Lamond] Murray and [Maurice] Taylor filled in for him.”

Murray, who sat out two games because of a sprained wrist, started in place of Wright and had 21 points and 10 rebounds. After having 16 points and two rebounds in 26 minutes against the Warriors, Murray made eight of 14 shots against the Mavericks.

He is averaging 16.9 points when playing 25 minutes or more and appears fully recovered from the hand injury. He has made 15 of 26 shots (57.6%) in his last two games.

“It [the injury] was no problem,” he said. “It didn’t bother me.”

Murray said the Clippers (8-24) are finally starting to come together.

“I think we’re playing better team ball, rather than playing as erratic as we did at the beginning of the season,” he said.

Taylor, meanwhile, had 15 points and nine rebounds in 26 minutes.

But it was Barry who made the real difference. He missed five of six shots in the opening quarter, but made eight of his final 14 shots and seven points in the final quarter.

Barry scored five of the Clippers’ final 10 points and set up Eric Piatkowski for a three-point basket as the Clippers ended the game with a 10-4 run in the final 2:17.

“He [Barry] was there at crunch time,” Fitch said. “He was well rested when he came in there in the fourth quarter and he nailed two big ones and he set up the other one.”

With the Clippers leading, 87-84, Barry made a three-point shot with 2:07 remaining. After Dennis Scott made a three-pointer with 1:50 left, Barry set up Piatkowski, who missed nine of his first 10 shots, for a three-pointer with 1:30 remaining.

Barry added a layup with 52 seconds left to give the Clippers an eight-point lead and Taylor dunked off a pass from Piatkowski with 36 seconds left before Darrick Martin dribbled out the clock.

The Mavericks missed their first 10 shots before Eric Riley made a five-foot jump shot with 5:45 remaining in the quarter.

But the Clippers, who led, 22-3, seven minutes into the quarter, crashed and burned, as the Mavericks made eight of their next 11 shots and ended the quarter with a 17-4 run.

In the end, though, that was not enough.