Spurs Hit the Big One Twice

For a precious few minutes, fate didn’t matter. Maurice Taylor was using Tim Duncan like a paper towel, shooting jumpers over him and driving around him. Michael Olowokandi blocked a shot by David Robinson and forced Robinson to alter another.

Oh, and for good measure Lamar Odom fed Derek Anderson for a layup, then threw down a fastbreak dunk.

Yeah, who needs Duncan and Robinson with Taylor, Olowokandi and Odom around?

If ever so briefly, the Clippers could think those thoughts and not wonder what if, not lament their misfortune when it came to Duncan and Robinson.

But eventually reality intruded. Duncan shook off a terrible shooting start to score 22 points, including six straight in crunch time.

Robinson, who has made a smooth transition from MVP to role player, took a key charge late in the game.

San Antonio 99, Clippers 94.

The real score, as always, was San Antonio 2, Clippers 0.

As long as San Antonio has its Twin Towers the Clippers will always view the Spurs as enjoying what could have been theirs. The Clippers are like Dan Aykroyd standing outside in the rain, watching Eddie Murphy dine at a fine restaurant with the Dukes in “Trading Places.”

Robinson and Duncan are the type of franchise players a team gets a shot at every decade or so. In this case, they came into the league exactly 10 years apart. And each time, they were a year too early for the Clippers’ sake.

When it comes to success and good fortune, the Clippers haven’t had much of either. Even when they do enjoy a good season or catch a lucky break, it comes at the wrong time.

The Clippers made one of their rare playoff appearances in 1997, which took them out of the Duncan lottery. By the time they returned to their customary place at the Secaucus, N.J., drawing in 1998, it was too late for Tim. They hit the jackpot, coming up with the No. 1 pick even though they didn’t have the worst record in the league.

Unfortunately for them, the draft didn’t have a clear-cut top player the way the Duncan draft did, so they had to select Michael Olowokandi and hope he would live up to it.

In 1987 the Spurs landed the No. 1 pick and took Robinson. The Clippers got the No. 1 pick the next year and took Danny Manning.

Blame fate, blame the bounce of the pingpong balls. You can even blame Duncan and Robinson’s parents for conceiving their children a year too early. The end result is those two all-stars--one winding down a fine career, the other just getting started--are Spurs instead of Clippers.

That could have been the Clippers winning the NBA championship, holding the distinction of being the first team to put a new banner in Staples Center. Think about it: with Duncan and Robinson, the Clippers could have been the building’s main attraction, not its third wheel.

It would not have been very difficult to put all the right pieces around Duncan and Robinson. Give Spurs’ management some credit for finding a good fit, but the rest of their roster isn’t stocked with players who were coveted around the league.

The gap between Olowokandi and Duncan is so much greater than the one-year difference in their NBA experience.

How about this telling moment: In the third quarter, when the courtside statistics monitors flashed that Olowokandi’s 12th point marked his season high, it also matched Duncan’s total at the time. But Duncan’s 12 points came on a decidedly sub-par three-for-14 job from the field.

Olowokandi was finished scoring for the night. Duncan had much more in him.

With the game hanging in the balance in the fourth quarter, he made a hook shot. He caught the ball deep in the lane on Taylor and scored. He drove, spun and made a layup.

Not only did he finish with 22 points, he had 17 rebounds (or three more than Olowokandi and Taylor combined). Some bad night.

Taylor spent much of the night in foul trouble again, although he did manage to pick up 18 points in 24 minutes.

Chris Ford had Olowokandi or Taylor on the bench at different times down the stretch. Do you think Gregg Popovich even considered lifting Robinson or Duncan?

That’s the difference between franchise players and merely good players. Sometimes it’s the difference of the timely bounce of a pingpong ball.

“The Clippers just need one or two breaks,” said Robinson, “We got two big breaks.

“You’ve got to have a couple of breaks. It doesn’t seem like the Clippers have had any.”

Oh, well, anyone can have an off decade.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com

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SPURS: 99

CLIPPERS: 94

L.A. played its most complete game of the season and got 28 points and seven rebounds from Derek Anderson but still lost. Page 4

SHAPING UP

Eric Murdock hopes to play Sunday against the Grizzlies. Page 4