It Doesn’t Take Long for Clippers to Return to Earth

One of the NBA’s biggest fears in the lockout-condensed season was realized Monday night at McNichols Arena.

A game between two of its weakest teams was played at the same time as the NCAA basketball championship game. As expected, not too many took the time to see who would win in the NBA’s battle of attrition.

Despite being fresh off their impressive blowout victory of the Utah Jazz on Saturday, the Clippers came out stale against the Denver Nuggets and lost, 100-88, before a generously announced crowd of 7,829.

“We knew that we were playing [during] the NCAA title game. You just got to block that out and play,” Clipper guard Darrick Martin said.

A point most of the Clippers must have forgotten as they struggled early, late and in between. In losing for the 25th time in 28 games, the Clippers returned to their soft and selfish ways which made it easy for the Nuggets to end a four-game losing streak and improve to 8-22.

“We were not as aggressive as we were against the Utah Jazz and [the Nuggets] took advantage of it,” Clipper Coach Chris Ford said. “They outhustled us to loose balls. They were more physical than we were and they got better post position than we did.”

The Clippers trailed the entire game and failed to apply much defense against Denver’s Antonio McDyess (24 points and 15 rebounds), Chauncey Billups (24 points and nine assists) and Nick Van Exel (22 points and five assists).

Too many times the Clippers watched rebounds go unattended or were stopped by Denver screens. The Clippers also missed more than their share of layups and many of their perimeter shots were a foot off the mark as they shot 37.1% from the field.

Michael Olowokandi, who had put together a string of strong games, showed that he’s still an inexperienced rookie by making only one of 11 shots and finishing with seven points and six rebounds.

Maurice Taylor, the Clippers’ leading scorer, made only five of 13 attempts from the field for 10 points and a had four rebounds.

“We need Michael to be a strong post presence, as well as Mo [Taylor], to make the defense have to double team them,” Ford said. “We have pound the ball inside. Take the ball in the middle and force double teams to come. If not, Mo and Michael should score over people down there in the paint.”

Although the game was basically meaningless playoff-wise, play was rough at times.

In the second quarter, Martin and Van Exel, who know each other well from Van Exel’s Laker days and from UCLA pickup games, made a lackluster game interesting.

Martin got things going when he delivered a hard foul going for a block on a Van Exel layup. Minutes later, Van Exel returned the favor with his own cheap shot, a two-handed push to Martin’s back when he drove down the lane.

After Martin hammered Van Exel in the head on a Denver possession, the Nugget point guard chased him down and seemed to deliberately trip Martin. An angry Van Exel had to be restrained before the two players’ running battle got worse.

“It’s just part of the game. I wasn’t trying to hurt him and I hope he wasn’t trying to hurt me,” Martin said. “We should be [cool]. If I didn’t come out and try to compete, he’d think less of me. That’s all it was. It was two guards competing trying to win. He hit a couple of shots so I was trying to be a little physical with him. It wasn’t with any intention to hurt him at all.”

In the fourth quarter, when many of the fans had already decided to leave, two more players came close to blows when Taylor, who had a run-in Saturday with Utah’s Karl Malone, got in a grabbing match with Denver’s Carl Herrera.

Unfortunately for the Clippers, the hitting done by Martin and Taylor was not the kind they needed to win their second game in a row.

“We have to play physical,” Ford said. “When we bang, good things happen for us.”