Thanks to Clippers, Streak is 23-Skiddoo

What was that smell at the Sports Arena?

It was the Clippers losing to the Denver Nuggets, 99-81, Saturday night before an announced 7,614.

“It was about as embarrassing as losing your pants in front of all those people,” forward Lorenzen Wright said after the Clippers prevented the Nuggets from trying the NBA record for most consecutive losses. “We lost to the worst team in the NBA. They’ve won three games, two against us.”

The Nuggets, who lost 38 of their first 40 games, are still on pace to finish with the worst record in NBA history (6-76), surpassing the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, who won nine games.

Clipper Coach Bill Fitch took the game ball from Denver guard Bobby Jackson and gave it to Nugget Coach Bill Hanzlik after the Nuggets ended their 23-game losing streak.

“I’ve been there,” said Fitch, the first NBA coach to lose 1,000 games. “You go through that many losses and somebody ought to give you something.

“If we play many more games like we played tonight, we’ll get our own streak going.”

Hanzlik was elated.

“Thank God almighty,” Hanzlik said, eyes raised to the ceiling after the Nuggets won for the first time in 23 road games. “I think we deserved to win some games in the streak and we didn’t, so it evened out.”

The Clippers, who were without guard Brent Barry because of a sore heel, shot only 37.1% and making a season-low 26 field goals.

Forward Rodney Rogers missed seven of 10 shots, forward Lamond Murray missed seven of nine and rookie Maurice Taylor seven of 11. Guard Eric Piatkowski, who started in place of Barry, missed five of eight shots.

Darrick Martin was the leading scorer with 14 points.

The Clippers fell behind by 11 points after the first quarter, but the fans didn’t begin booing until the end of the first half, when the Clippers fell behind the Nuggets by 18 points at 56-38.

At that point, the Clippers got booed off the court.

It was perhaps the darkest moment in Clipper history since they lost to the Phoenix Suns by 19 points on Dec. 30, 1987 after leading by 21 points in the first half.

And it was going to get darker.

The Nuggets increased their lead to 25 points after three quarters, 78-53, and coasted home from there.

The Clippers made four of their first six shots, then made seven of their next 28 shots.

The hecklers were out in full force after the Nuggets, whose last win came on Dec. 7 against the Clippers, beat the Clippers for the second time in three games.

“Where’s Benoit?” a fan screamed.

“Pitiful,” another heckler yelled after the Clippers lost for the seventh time in their last eighth games.

Piatkowski, a rookie when the Clippers opened the 1994-95 season with 16 consecutive losses, said it was almost as embarrassing.

“I think this is worse because I was a rookie then,” Piatkowski said. “This team made the playoffs last year. They played with a lot of heart and desire. They played a great game and we didn’t.”

The Clippers cut the deficit to 12 points in the third quarter, but the Nuggets outscored the Clippers, 16-3 in the final 5:09 of the quarter.

“We had a chance when we cut the lead down, but we didn’t make the plays to get over the hump,” Martin said. “This is a definite low point. We’re a much better team than we showed tonight.”

Anthony Goldwire made six of eight shots and had 20 points in 29 minutes as a reserve for the Nuggets.

“Everyone was on the same page tonight,” Goldwire said. “We executed very well.”

“We didn’t want to be a part of the Guinness Book of World Records,” forward Danny Fortson said. “If we did lose, we wanted to play our hardest.”