Clippers Give a Better Effort but Still Can’t Defeat Dallas

At least the Clippers can say they didn’t trail for 48 minutes.

After losing twice to Dallas in games they never led, the Clippers had a better showing against the Mavericks Thursday night, but the result was the same as it’s been 27 times this year.

The Mavericks completed a season sweep with a hard-fought 93-84 victory before 13,336 at Reunion Arena, dropping the Clippers to 3-27.

“They had a lot more effort than they had early on in the season,” said Dallas forward Gary Trent, who again roughed up the Clippers with 23 points and 11 rebounds.

“They tried to win this game. They have a lot of talent, but it’s too bad that they waited until this point of the season to start trying to put it together.”

The Clippers were again outrebounded, 44-36, and they did not help themselves by shooting 39.5% from the field while the Mavericks made 50.7% of their shots. Although they did play harder, the Clippers’ effort was not nearly at the same level it was when they defeated Utah last week.

“If we played everybody like [the way we played the Jazz], we would win a lot of games,” Clipper forward Rodney Rogers said.

In an attempt to combat the Mavericks’ starting forward combination of A.C. Green and Trent, Clipper Coach Chris Ford put Maurice Taylor on Green and Rogers on Trent.

In the backcourt, the Clippers opened with Darrick Martin at point and Tyrone Nesby made his first NBA start at shooting guard with the goal of shutting down Dallas’ Michael Finley.

For the most part, that lineup didn’t work too well. Green and Trent combined for 36 points and the Mavericks’ starting guards, Steve Nash and Finley, teamed for 34.

What did work for Ford was when he inserted Troy Hudson at point guard along with Lamond Murray at either shooting guard or small forward. They came off the bench and provided a lift at both ends of the court.

Hudson played a career-high 38 minutes and had 11 points and seven assists with only one turnover. Murray had a team-high 17 points and four rebounds in 29 minutes.

“Troy’s playing very well and it seemed great things happened for us when he was out there,” Ford said when asked why Martin played only 10 minutes.

It was Hudson and Murray, along with Eric Piatkowski, Lorenzen Wright and Rogers, who were on the floor when the Clippers came alive in the second quarter. After spotting Dallas an early 12-point lead, that lineup sparked a comeback in which the Clippers outscored the Mavericks, 28-16, in the quarter to take a 46-44 lead at halftime.

But in the third quarter, Ford went back to the five players who began the game and the Clippers started the second half flat. Dallas opened with a 13-4 run before Hudson and Wright rallied the Clippers back to a 65-63 lead. But the Mavericks finished the quarter strong to take a 75-70 lead heading into the fourth.

Murray, who played only two minutes in the third after scoring 15 points in the first half, played the entire final quarter. Along with Hudson, Rogers and Michael Olowokandi, he helped cut Dallas’ lead to 81-80 with 7:17 remaining.

It would be as close as the Clippers would get. The Mavericks finished the game with a 13-4 spurt, thanks to some strong defense that shut down the Clippers’ halfcourt offense.

“We just had a lack of focus,” said Rogers, who had 12 points and nine rebounds. “We came down and took some bad shots. We can’t do that on the road.”

Added Hudson: “We didn’t do a good job executing to win the game. They played some good defense. We got some shots, we just didn’t get them to fall.”

The Clippers failed to score for 5 minutes 19 seconds and the Mavericks opened up an 89-80 lead. The closest they came to scoring a basket during that span was when Hudson appeared to have made a layup only to have Olowokandi called for offensive basket interference.

“We were battling but after it got to 81-80, we couldn’t get our offense going,” Ford said.