Clippers Can’t Do Much Except Lose

The Clippers couldn’t get a bounce, couldn’t get a call, couldn’t get a victory that seemed to be suspended in midair for so long Saturday against the Atlanta Hawks, theirs for the taking.

Theirs for the leaving, as it turned out.

Quentin Richardson drove toward the basket in search of the go-ahead basket late, but didn’t get a call and didn’t get a roll. Andre Miller went the same route, but couldn’t get the ball to do more than dance on the rim before falling off.

Lamar Odom tried a jump shot after Jason Terry’s free throw at the other end. Nope. Elton Brand attempted a fall-away. Nope.

And the Hawks captured an 89-87 victory in front of 16,609 at Staples Center.

All the Clippers, save Brand, beat a hasty departure from the locker room. Most left without showering, according to witnesses, while Coach Alvin Gentry conducted his postgame session with reporters in another room.

Not that there was much to say, but the team’s mass exodus marked one of the few unifying moments of the night. Brand was not immediately available for comment because he was undergoing treatment for an unspecified injury.

So it was left to Gentry to explain the Clippers’ 35th loss in 54 games and their 10th in their last 13 games.

“We play great against Milwaukee and then we struggle against a team we should beat,” Gentry said, referring to Wednesday’s victory over the Bucks and Saturday’s loss to the Hawks (21-34), when they couldn’t sustain a 13-point first-half lead.

“We can’t seem to get any kind of momentum going. We played well in the first quarter and then we lost some defensive intensity, so that hurt us. We struggled to make shots in the third quarter.”

Gentry paused only momentarily before continuing a postgame rant.

“It was another close game and we had to come up with a basket or a [defensive] stop and we didn’t do either,” he said. “That’s the way it’s been. We’ve not been able to win these kinds of games. That’s the way the season has gone. That’s why we’re in the position we’re in right now.”

And there was more.

“It’s not like we’ve had a season where we’ve been blown out of every game. We’ve lost a lot of these kinds of games. It’s the 18th time we’ve lost when we’ve been up in the fourth quarter. It’s very disheartening because I don’t know what we’re going to get night in and night out.”

Even without Corey Maggette, who has a groin injury, and Keyon Dooling (strained left foot), the Clippers went right at the Hawks.

A 13-0 run enabled the Clippers to build a 21-10 lead. They led, 27-14, after Brand’s dunk to cap a fastbreak.

The crowd roared its approval, although the man Odom had a running conversation with during Wednesday’s game was nowhere to be found. Someone else was sitting in owner Donald T. Sterling’s courtside seat and, presumably, Odom had no one to plead his case about keeping this team together. Sterling had a prior engagement Saturday, according to a team spokesman.

Odom gave Sterling an earful during Wednesday’s game, and kept the conversation going in the locker room after the Clippers won. Later, Odom explained to reporters that Sterling needed to “marry one of us to the team.”