Odom’s Return a Big Success

The Clippers took the floor before the start of Tuesday night’s game ready to take it to the Philadelphia 76ers.

With Lamar Odom back in the starting lineup after sitting out five games for violating the league’s anti-drug program and Philadelphia without injured all-star guard Allen Iverson and ailing Coach Larry Brown, everything pointed in the Clippers’ direction.

But for a half it didn’t look that way. With the 76ers showing they didn’t take the NBA’s best record into the game by being a one-man team, the Clippers struggled to put the 76ers away and needed a dominant third quarter to carry them to an 88-77 victory before a sellout crowd of 19,680 at Staples Center.

“Lamar set the tempo with his emotions in the locker room before we even went out to play the game,” said point guard Jeff McInnis, who had 16 points and nine assists. “He was jumping around telling everyone how excited he was to be back.”

Odom scored a game-high 25 points on six-of-11 shooting and also had six assists. Michael Olowokandi also had a strong game with 12 points, 12 rebounds and four blocked shots against Philadelphia center Dikembe Mutombo, who finished with 14 points, six rebounds and only one block.

“If Mike plays like [he did against the 76ers] we will be hard to beat,” Odom said. “Some times, Mike thinks he has to score a lot to have a big game. But that’s because he hasn’t been playing too long. He doesn’t understand that he can dominate games with rebounding and just being a presence scaring those other guys. That’s what Mutombo does. Mike played awesome tonight. I tip my hat off to Sir Olowokandi.”

The Clippers, who are 24-45 after their second victory in three games, made 57.1% of their shots, including eight of 18 three-point attempts. Eric Piatkowski finished with 13 points and five rebounds and reserve Darius Miles had 10 points, seven rebounds and three blocked shots in 35 minutes.

Shooting guard Aaron McKie had 22 points and seven rebounds for the slumping 76ers, who have lost four consecutive games. Philadelphia played its third consecutive game without Iverson, the league’s leading scorer, who is sidelined because of a hip pointer. The 76ers, who dropped to 48-20, could have Iverson back for Friday’s game at Phoenix along with Brown, who has been undergoing tests for a stomach ailment.

“We lost to a bad team, plain and simple,” 76er forward Tyrone Hill said. “We played bad. We played like we were the Clippers. There’s no question that they beat us but they are still a bad team.”

Odom, who had not played since March 5, didn’t come out playing wildly, which had been a pregame concern for Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry. Instead of trying to do too much too soon, Odom let the flow of the game come to him. He made his first three shots and had three first-quarter assists to help the Clippers take a 26-25 lead after one quarter.

But after making a sizzling 62.5% of their shots in the first quarter, the Clippers cooled off some in the second and Philadelphia used nine offensive rebounds to take a 46-44 halftime lead.

After sparring with the 76ers in the first half, the Clippers tried to deliver a knockout run in the third quarter. With Olowokandi controlling the action inside, grabbing five rebounds in the quarter, the Clippers outscored Philadelphia, 29-16, to take a 73-62 lead into the fourth.

“We talked at halftime about our defense and how giving up 46 points in a half without Iverson was not good,” Gentry said. “We had to get into a situation where we shut them down in the second half. I thought we did a great job of that by only giving up 31 points [over the final two quarters].”

Once the Clippers opened up a 12-point lead, they finished the game by limiting the 76ers’ open shots and Olowokandi, Miles and Odom did their part by combining for nine of the Clippers’ 10 blocked shots.

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BROWN READY TO RETURN

Coach Larry Brown is expected to rejoin the Philadelphia 76ers today in Phoenix. D5