Clippers Put Brand on Hornets

They proved long ago they can run and jump and leap and dunk and turn Staples Center electric with their flashy play. But the Clippers continued Sunday to make remarkable progress in some of the more mundane aspects of the game.

You know, setting sturdy picks, playing strong defense and actually boxing out opponents under the backboards. Stuff like that can make a bad team good and a good team great.

No one will confuse the Clippers with the World Champions, but a basketball journey of enlightenment often begins with a play as simple as the pick and roll.

The Clippers ran one good one during crunch time against Charlotte, got the key basket they needed from Elton Brand, off a pass from Jeff McInnis, and held off the Hornets for an 89-78 victory in front of a crowd of 16,098.

Brand’s 19-foot jump shot capped a textbook pick and roll with McInnis with 1 minute remaining and gave the Clippers an 84-76 lead. Stout defense and five of six free throws down the stretch enabled the Clippers to use a 7-2 run to turn back the Hornets.

In the final analysis, Brand was the perfect go-to guy. After all, he had been almost flawless from start to finish. His shot was his 12th of the game and the 10th to hit the mark. He also had another monster rebounding game, taking 19 to go with a game-high 22 points.

“If we can start to win these types of games on a consistent basis.... I mean we can run and gun with the best of them,” Brand said. “But we’ve got to play this grind-it-out style, too.”

The Clippers (10-10) seemed poised to run the Hornets (9-11) out of Staples during a first-period performance that rivaled their best quarters of the season. One 10-0 run midway through the quarter enabled the Clippers to seize control.

Lamar Odom scored off a fastbreak. Corey Maggette made a jumper and then a dunk on the break. Odom drove for a basket, then rebounded a Maggette miss for another hoop and an 18-9 lead.

By the end of the quarter, the Clippers were up, 29-21, and Charlotte Coach Paul Silas was getting edgy. It was time to jam on the brakes or the Clippers would rout the Hornets.

“They’re very athletic,” Silas said of the Clippers. “They play hard.”

When things got tight, when the Hornets’ defensive pressure and slow-it-up offense finally got them close late, the Clippers got smart and got a victory.

Instead of forcing plays and looking for something extra for the late-night highlight shows, the Clippers put the ball in the hands of their best player and won for the fifth time in the last seventh. Brand scored 16 points, on seven-of-nine shooting, in the second half.

“I think we’re getting better at the half-court game,” said Odom, who had 14 points, seven assists and four rebounds. “Nobody wants to get dunked on [and that’s why teams slow it down against the Clippers]. I feel like we can play it both ways now.”

And that’s a dramatic change from last season, when the Clippers had Odom and rain-thin Darius Miles playing in the power forward spot. The addition of Brand in an off-season trade with the Chicago Bulls gives the Clippers a bona fide bruiser down low.

“This year, we can grind and bang with anybody,” Odom said.

Ask Charlotte guard Baron Davis, who hardly got a sniff for long stretches. Davis, a former UCLA Bruin, had 16 points, but missed 12 of 18 shots and five of six free throws.

The 82 tickets he purchased for family and friends pretty much went to waste.

“They were a lot more focused and executed their game plan well,” Davis said of the Clippers. “They’re a good team.”

Next up: games tonight against the Orlando Magic, Wednesday against the Seattle SuperSonics and Friday against the Lakers. That’s three significant games for the Clippers to show how far they have come.

“This was a really good win for us,” Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry said of defeating Charlotte. “Elton Brand played great and Lamar Odom is playing the way we thought he could all along. Everyone played well. We have to have a total team effort. Every now and then somebody steps up and it’s been good for us.”