Let’s Just Say It Can’t Get Much Worse

The end is near for the Clippers.

Oh, the schedule and the calendar indicate there are plenty of games and days left in the season for them to get their act together. But if they play with as little passion as they did in a record-setting 95-64 loss Wednesday to the Minnesota Timberwolves, they’re as good as done.

They set a Los Angeles Clipper record with 64 points, eclipsing the previous low of 67 set on Jan. 29, 2001 against the San Antonio Spurs. It also was the fewest points allowed by the Timberwolves, bettering the mark of 68 set March 24, 1998 against the Boston Celtics.

“That was ridiculous,” Alvin Gentry said in what was believed to be his shortest postgame session with reporters in his two-plus seasons as coach. “It should be embarrassing for the fans. It should be embarrassing to ownership. It should be embarrassing to management. It should be embarrassing to the coaches.

“The fans deserve to boo the [poor play] that went on.”

Gentry then added, “And that’s all I have to say.”

The Clippers were history Wednesday after scoring the game’s first two points, then watching the Timberwolves get the next 13. The Clippers’ were doomed to fail by their 24-for-75 shooting (32%) and 13-for-24 free-throw shooting (54.2%).

A crowd of 15,838 at Staples Center booed with increasing intensity as the Clippers played with remarkable indifference from the start. The Clippers’ shoulders were slumped, looking almost resigned to defeat. The Clippers, 14-24 and in last place in the Pacific Division, lost their second consecutive game and their eighth in their last 10.

Forty-four games remain on the Clippers’ schedule, starting with the Sacramento Kings on Saturday at Staples Center. Monday, they face the Lakers and Wednesday they are at Salt Lake City to play the Utah Jazz, where they have lost 26 consecutive games.

“Nobody wants to give up on the season this early,” power forward Elton Brand said. “If we keep losing, it’s going to be like that ... I heard coach use the word embarrassing. We should have at least fought and given them a good shot. We didn’t have any fight or intensity or sense of urgency tonight.”

Gentry hoped it would be better. He hoped to ignite something resembling a sense of urgency in his team by giving a pregame talk about the need to keep pushing against the odds.

Gentry pointed out that 11 teams in league history have rebounded from 15 victories or fewer at the midseason mark to qualify for the playoffs.

One team, the 1982-83 New York Knicks, went from 15-26 to 44-38 and went on to defeat the New Jersey Nets by two games to none in the first round of the playoffs. The 1984-85 Cleveland Cavaliers, to name another, rebounded from a 12-29 start to finish 36-46, losing to the Boston Celtics in the first round.

Naturally, the Clippers looked (pick any or all): flat, bored, listless, lifeless, hopeless and rudderless from start to finish against the Timberwolves. By the time Rasho Nesterovic turned Michael Olowokandi every which way but loose with a textbook up-and-under move, the Timberwolves had seized a 58-38 lead early in the third quarter.

Game over.

“There’s no way Minnesota is 30 points better,” backup center Sean Rooks said. “We have a lot of games left. We have to find something to pull us back together again ... We’re going through a tough time. Something’s got to give. We’ve got to start playing better or I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve dug ourselves a massive hole.”