They’re Playing Head Games

First of all, he won’t answer “the question.”

It’s what you want to know. It’s what reporters from Sacramento to Japan want to know.

It’s about that little celebration that Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles do, pounding their fists against their foreheads.

Does it have a name? Some hidden meaning?

“That’s inside,” Richardson says. “We can’t say.”

Does it have to do with a fraternity?

“Q wasn’t in school long enough to be in a fraternity,” pipes up Keyon Dooling, from a couple of lockers over.

“We do it for a reason,” Richardson says. “I just can’t say it.”

And no, there isn’t a marketing scheme behind it.

“I wish,” he says. “Pay me.”

“We just started doing it,” Miles says. “I do it if I get a dunk or a spectacular play. This year, Q does it any time he scores....

“He’s been scoring a lot.”

Sure has.

Try 14 points a game in only 26 minutes. He has led the team in scoring seven times, the most of any reserve player in the league, and has scored 20 or more points eight times.

That’s a lot of head-pounding. Good thing he has that headband to cushion the blows or Richardson might have knocked himself down about 20 IQ points.

“He’s playing good this year,” Miles said. “If he continues to play like that, he might get sixth man of the year.”

The TNT announcers were saying the same thing Dec. 18, when Richardson gave the Suns 16 points. It was a little coming-out party for him and the Clippers in their first nationally televised game.

And he had plenty of opportunity to do his little ritual.

He won’t give a name for the forehead-pound, and he doesn’t have a story behind his shot, that sweet rainbow that practically brushes the scoreboard before splashing through the net. Tracy Murray of the Toronto Raptors learned to shoot with a high arc to get the ball over a branch in his backyard hoop. No such tale for Q.

Richardson, growing up on the South Side of Chicago, played in the front driveway. One crack in the pavement was the free-throw line. Another was out of bounds. He didn’t have an obstacle to alter his shots, but he did have incentive to make them: When the garage door was open, a miss could head toward the Cadillac Fleetwood parked inside.

“My father would always scream at him, ‘Don’t let the ball hit the car!”’ said Rochelle Richardson, Quentin’s sister.

So Richardson had no choice but to become a good shooter. Still, that’s not what the book on him--even the Clippers’ own entry--said on him when he came out of DePaul after his sophomore year.

Gentry said it’s the most surprising aspect of Richardson’s game.

He has become deadly from three-point range. He’s shooting 48% from behind the arc and made 10 in a row over one three-game stretch.

At 6-feet-6, 236 pounds, Richardson doesn’t have a classic basketball physique. But it’s a lot better than it used to be.

“I was a little chubby dude,” Richardson said of his childhood years. “I had a little weight on me.”

He was 5-11 as a high school freshman, then hit 6-2 by his sophomore year and was 6-5 by the time he received his diploma.

Now he just wears out guys in the low post. And once he’s up in the air, he has knack for hanging and moving the ball around to get a clear shot at the hoop. And defenders, don’t let him get a running start on you because you will get dunked on.

“I feel like, if a guy is smaller than me, I’m going to try to back him down under there and just turn and overpower them,” Richardson said. “If guys are bigger, I’ll try to pump-fake and jab and step.”

He learned about the daily intensity that greatness requires by playing pickup games with Michael Jordan over the summer. He used the same personal trainer as Jordan, Tim Grover, and then joined MJ for games in Chicago’s Hoops The Gym.

“He shows you how to play ball,” Richardson said. “He’s out there playing hard, and what does he have to prove? That just makes you respect the game more.”

OK, so what does Richardson have to do to get a spot in the Clippers’ starting lineup?

Coach Alvin Gentry said he likes bringing Richardson and Miles off the bench because it gives the Clippers so much energy and scoring punch.

The crowd at Staples Center gets excited when they head down to the scorer’s table to check in, and it usually isn’t long before fans are pounding their heads along with Richardson after another three-pointer.

Being a new millennium microwave suits Richardson fine, for now.

“I’m not mad about the role I’m playing,” he said. “I’m only in my second year. I don’t need to rush.”

We’re the ones who are eager, desperate to learn the symbolism of the celebration move. It’s a fully established part of his game now. Rim-rocker, head-knocker. Swish, then fists (and he sticks three fingers in the air after making a three-pointer).

Avery Johnson mocked him with it during a timeout in Denver. Sacramento center Vlade Divac greeted Richardson by doing the head-pound in the hallway at Staples Center. It’s the basketball version of Sammy Sosa’s chest-taps.

“All I know is, he does it whenever he scores,” Gentry said. “I hope he keeps doing it a lot.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.