Bulls Seem the Same to Clippers

For nearly three quarters Sunday, the Clippers played as if they thought the Chicago Bulls still had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman in their starting lineup instead Brent Barry, Mark Bryant and Andrew Lang.

With a chance for their first victory of the season, the Clippers came out flat and fell behind by 20 points, making the new-look Bulls appear like a team that has won the last three NBA titles.

But once the Clippers realized they weren’t the same Bulls, they made a game of it and almost rallied for a win only to fall short, 89-84, in front of a dismal crowd of 6,118 at the Sports Arena.

It was their seventh consecutive loss to Chicago.

The Clippers actually had a chance to tie the score or take the lead in the game’s final seconds. After a free throw by Ron Harper gave Chicago an 84-82 lead with 17.2 seconds left, Clipper guard Darrick Martin missed a three-point attempt and the Bulls were able to close the game with a free throw by Lang, a key rebound by Toni Kukoc and two more free throws by Barry.

The Clippers, who dropped to 0-2, hurt themselves in a couple of areas. They were outrebounded, 50-37, including 23-13 in offensive rebounds. They shot 37% from the field and made only three of 13 three-point attempts. And they set a franchise low with only five assists.

“We wanted to win this game real bad and we just put ourselves in the hole. . . . to win games in this league, you can’t play uphill basketball,” said Martin, who made four of 11 shots and finished with 11 points. “You have to play even or downhill. Being 20 down is a hard climb.”

Kukoc and Harper, two holdovers from last year’s championship team, put in key work for the Bulls, who won their first game after losing at Utah on Friday. Kukoc fell one rebound short of a triple-double with 22 points, 11 assists and nine boards. Harper finished with 20 points and seven assists.

Chicago led, 33-16, after one quarter and held a 45-25 lead with 5:30 left before halftime, thanks to the Bulls’ commanding rebounding edge.

“A lot of people take Chicago for granted because everyone’s gone, but they are still a veteran team,” said Clipper Maurice Taylor, who started in place of injured forward Rodney Rogers. “They still have more experience than we do. We just have to play together a lot more. We have to think out on the floor. We can’t be getting brain locked and forget our assignments.”

Michael Olowokandi, who had 12 points and six rebounds in 28 minutes off the bench, and Martin helped lead a late second-quarter Clipper comeback as they combined for 10 points to cut Chicago’s lead to 53-39 at halftime.

The Clippers played Chicago even for much of the third quarter before getting a spark from Sherman Douglas, who replaced Martin and helped close the Bulls’ advantage to 69-62 heading into the final quarter.

After the Clippers got within two points, Chicago opened up an 82-73 lead with 4:13 remaining before Lamond Murray led the Clippers’ last charge. Murray, who had trouble defensively against Kukoc, finally shook off the Bulls’ clutching defense and scored seven points to help set up the game’s ending.

Harper, who made eight of 10 free throws, gave the Clippers a solid opportunity to steal a win by missing one of two shots from the line, but Martin’s shot was off.

“We were trying to go to Lamond but Darrick thought he had an open look at the basket and he took it,” Clipper Coach Chris Ford said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t drop for us.”

After Lang made a free throw with 7.3 seconds remaining, the Clippers still had an opportunity for a tie but Kukoc was able to chase down the rebound of Lang’s missed second free throw.

“We were done in by the lack of rebounding,” Ford said. “Our defense was not that bad aside from lack of rebounding. Basically, our starters have to get better at rebounding.”

Enough said.

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* NBA / MARK HEISLER

The Bulls had this circled on their schedule as the one they’d better get if they wanted to notch a win in the first week, or month. Page 8