Once Again, Clippers Blaze a Trail Against a Top Team

Worst beat first.

In another stunning upset victory for the NBA’s worst team, Maurice Taylor scored 14 consecutive points in the fourth quarter and the Clippers won for only the fifth time this season, beating the league-leading Portland Trail Blazers, 89-83, Sunday night.

The victory, the Clippers’ fourth against teams assured of playoff berths, came one night after they lost at home by 27 points to the Trail Blazers.

“We’re shocked,” said Isaiah Rider, who scored a team-high 17 points for the Trail Blazers. “We just lost to one of the teams at the bottom of the league. We’re not supposed to lose to them. We just didn’t play well. Yeah, we turned it over, yeah, we fouled a lot. Taylor got hot. We didn’t execute.”

The Trail Blazers, who also got 16 points from Rasheed Wallace, did not score in the last 2:27.

The Clippers had not won in Portland since 1993, losing 13 in a row.

This was the Clippers’ second victory over one of the league’s elite. They hammered the Utah Jazz by 26 points on March 27.

“This is two good wins under our belt,” Clipper Coach Chris Ford said. “We beat Utah when they had the best record in the league, and now we’ve beaten Portland with the best record in the league.”

The Clippers trailed by nine points early in the fourth quarter, but went ahead, 85-83, with 1:01 to go on Rodney Rogers’ tip-in. They padded the lead to 87-83 when Sherman Douglas made two free throws with 30.6 seconds left after a Trail Blazer turnover, and Tyrone Nesby added two free throws for the final margin.

Nesby had his first double-double, totaling 12 points and 12 rebounds. Douglas’ 19 points was his season high.

But it was Taylor who scored all of the Clippers’ 14 points during a six-minute stretch of the fourth quarter.

“The guards were giving me the ball in positions where I could score,” Taylor said. “I scored a couple in the box and they starting coming to me a lot more. There were some fouls and some easy baskets helped me too.”

The Trail Blazers played without leading rebounder Brian Grant and got only 20 minutes out of Arvydas Sabonis, who fouled out with 4:34 left.