Gentry Wants This One Badly

Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry desperately wants a victory tonight. If Kobe Bryant should go for 40 points or more again, that’s OK with Gentry as long as the Clippers defeat the Lakers for the first time in three games this season.

“We don’t have a Kobe stopper,” Gentry said. “It’s got to be a team thing. It’s been a couple of years since anybody’s stopped him. We’ll have to make him work for his points. He’s been on an incredible roll.”

Gentry has played Corey Maggette on Bryant and been successful -- at least in the individual matchup. Last season, Maggette torched Bryant for 28 points and five assists in the Clippers’ 95-90 victory Jan. 23, 2002. Bryant had 27 points to lead the Lakers.

“I’m not going into it,” Gentry said when asked about playing Maggette on Bryant. “I’m not talking about Kobe and Corey. We’ve got to have everybody help out on [Bryant]. All we’re interested in is winning the game. If he gets 65 and we win, that’s OK with me. Obviously, he’s going to get his attempts and get his points. Obviously, he has in the past. We’ll try a little bit of everything against him.

“You know, they do have another guy on that team.”

Oh, him.

“We haven’t even talked about trying to stop Shaq,” Gentry continued, referring to Shaquille O’Neal. “When you start talking about the MVP, he would be my MVP every year. We can’t put all our energies on Kobe. Kobe is a great, great player, but Shaq is the guy who makes them go.”

So how will the Clippers slow O’Neal?

“We have to limit his touches,” Gentry said. “We don’t have Michael [Olowokandi] to lean on him with that big body. We’ll try to help out as much as we can on Shaq.”

With Olowokandi sidelined after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery Feb. 3, the Clippers are expected to start Sean Rooks against O’Neal.

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Maggette is fit to play tonight after sitting out Saturday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks because of a groin injury. Keyon Dooling is not expected to play because of a strained left arch that sidelined him Saturday and Wednesday against Milwaukee.

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Eric Piatkowski’s next point will be his 5,000th as a Clipper. With 13 points Saturday against Atlanta, he moved past Charles Smith into eighth place on the franchise’s all-time list. Randy Smith’s 12,735 points top the list of Buffalo Brave and San Diego and Los Angeles Clipper scorers.