Clippers Get ‘A’ for Effort, ‘L’ for Loss

It was a game that had mismatch written all over it.

The slumping Clippers, who had lost four games in a row and 18 of 20, going against the Portland Trail Blazers, who have the best record in the NBA and had lost only three home games.

The Clippers hustled, fought and banged all game, an effort that would have been good enough for a victory on most nights. But not against the talented and deep Trail Blazers, who made 25 more free throws than the Clippers and won, 107-100, Wednesday night before a sellout crowd of 20,310 at the Rose Garden.

“The last two days, all [interim] coach [Jim] Todd did was preach to us defense, defense and more defense,” forward Maurice Taylor said. “He put it in our head so much to be a better defensive team, I think we responded to that. We had [Portland] really flustered with our helping and trapping on defense.”

Flustered. That would be an understatement.

The Clippers had the big, bad Trail Blazers scared.

“Taking people too lightly is a big problem and tonight we really put ourselves at risk,” Portland Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “At one point, I told [the players], ‘They’ll be practicing at 11 tomorrow morning’ ”

Portland, 3-0 against the Clippers, may have overlooked their Pacific Division rivals at the start. After the first quarter, the Trail Blazers knew they were in a game.

The Clippers appeared to have caught them off guard with full-court defensive pressure from the opening tip. The Trail Blazers turned the ball over seven times and trailed by 18 points after the first quarter.

Leading the Clipper offense was point guard Troy Hudson, who made five of seven shots and had 16 points in the first quarter. Hudson made four of five three-point attempts and the Clippers made 60% of their shots from the field.

“I actually came out passive . . . I didn’t score until the six-minute mark of the game,” said Hudson, who finished with 22 points.

“We were playing great defense. When I got hot, I didn’t want to continue to try and shoot and score. I am a point guard and I wanted the game to come to me. I didn’t want to take us out of our team flow.”

Dunleavy called on his second unit, known for its defense, in the second quarter and the move worked. After a rebound basket by Eric Piatkowski put the Clippers ahead, 44-26, with 8:33 left in the quarter, Portland went on a scoring run.

The Trail Blazers outscored the Clippers, 17-4, and seemed to have all of the momentum. But the Clippers responded with five points to close the half and took a 55-45 lead at intermission.

The third quarter is when Portland got its act together. The Trail Blazers turned up their full-court pressure and the Clippers’ shooting turned cold in a 16-2 run to open the second half.

Center Arvydas Sabonis, who had a team-high 23 points, was a force inside and shooting guard Steve Smith, who had 17 points, found his range on the perimeter to help Portland rally to a 61-57 lead halfway through the third quarter.

But the Clippers didn’t fold. With their center Michael Olowokandi, who didn’t start because he was late for practice, scoring six of his 10 points to close out the quarter, the Clippers rallied to take a 79-77 lead into the fourth.

“We knew we had to withstand their charge,” said Todd, who dropped to 0-3 since taking over for Chris Ford. “We bounced back and were still in it.”

Portland made 15 of 18 free throws in the fourth quarter to help withstand 52.6% shooting from the Clippers over the final 12 minutes. After the Trail Blazers took command with an 8-0 run early in the quarter, the closest the Clippers could get was 93-92 with a little over three minutes remaining.

The Clippers made a game of it but in the end, it wasn’t enough.

“I and my staff couldn’t have been happier with the effort we got,” Todd said. “We came up here to give it a shot. We wanted to steal one before the All-Star break.”

And they almost did.