There’s No Safe Harbor for Clippers

The Clippers can only hope their young players develop and mature as quickly as Orlando’s Tracy McGrady has in less than four seasons.

At 21, McGrady is already an All-Star and is only going to get better. On Wednesday night, McGrady gave the Clippers an up-close and personal look at his skills in a 114-101 Magic victory before 13,437 at TD Waterhouse Centre.

McGrady made nine of 17 field goals and finished with 22 points and seven rebounds to help the Magic win its seventh in a row and hand the Clippers their third consecutive defeat.

“His poise is just tremendous,” said the Clippers’ Lamar Odom, who defended McGrady much of the game. “He kind of puts you to sleep and then he either goes back door, shoots over you or dribbles by you for a basket.”

McGrady was so at ease against the Clippers’ soft defense that with Orlando holding a 22-point lead late in the third quarter, he tried to bounce the ball off the backboard and then catch it for a dunk in traffic. The move, however, did not work, nor did it please Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry.

“Tracy McGrady has really stepped up his game and he is playing extremely well,” Gentry said. “But I’ll give him a little bit of advice. . . . and that is you don’t try and embarrass a team when you have them down. Throwing the ball like that and then trying to dunk it, you should not do those things. He is too good a player to do those things.”

McGrady dominated play in the first half. If he wasn’t beating a scrambling Darius Miles off the dribble for a dunk, he was waiting patiently for an open three-point shot or swatting away a layup attempt by the Clippers’ Corey Maggette.

The Clippers, who played great defense in an overtime loss Tuesday at Miami, played Orlando tough for nearly a quarter and a half. At that point, McGrady took over.

With the Clippers trailing, 37-34, McGrady sparked a 28-7 Orlando run to finish the first half. In taking a 65-41 lead at the break, McGrady had 17 points and point guard Darrell Armstrong added 15.

Orlando, which had not played in a week, was able to spread the court against the Clippers’ full-court trapping defense and get high-percentage shots. After watching McGrady and Armstrong do most of the damage in the first half, rookie Mike Miller joined the fun with eight of his 16 points in the third quarter.

“Against Miami, we were able to trap a little bit better because they are not anywhere as close to athletic as Orlando,” Gentry said. “They have three or four guys who they can stick out there to space the floor. It’s almost impossible to stay in your rotations. We tried to get there but they shot the ball well.”

The Clippers did cut Orlando’s lead to 12 early in the fourth quarter, but Armstrong helped put the Clippers away for good, finishing with 22 points and 16 assists.

“We let them determine the tempo and they took us out of our game tremendously,” said Odom, who finished with 15 points but missed five of seven shots from the field. “That’s why we got spanked.”

For Maggette, who played with Orlando as a rookie last season, it was a disappointing homecoming. He pressed in the first half before managing to get into the flow in the second, but by then it was too late.

“Orlando’s transition game is better at home than any team in the league,” Maggette said. “Sacramento is close but they do not need the home crowd as much as Orlando does. Once they get the crowd into it, they ran us to death. And the thing about [the Magic] is they have a ton of shooters.”

Miles, who had 14 points and six rebounds off the bench, agreed with Maggette and pointed to the Clippers’ 92-80 victory over the Magic at Staples Center in December.

“When we were at home, we got running and we kicked their . . . .” Miles said. “They just got momentum and beat us when we were a little tired from the previous night.”