‘Off the Charts’ Trip Is a Longshot

Before Sunday night’s game at New York, Mike Dunleavy said that bringing home three victories from the Clippers’ eight-game journey would constitute an “OK” trip, and four would make it “really good.”

“Anything beyond that,” the Clipper coach said, “is off the charts, for a team that’s sitting where we’re sitting.”

With two games to go, “off the charts” might be out of reach. They’re 3-3 after a 110-104 loss to the Knicks, their second defeat in three days.

And after wrapping up a string of seven consecutive games against Eastern Conference opponents with losing records, they’re back against the West, where they’re 11-17, as opposed to 11-10 against the East.

They’ll play the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight and the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday before breaking for All-Star Weekend. They’re 0-2 against the Timberwolves, who sit atop the Midwest Division, and were defeated in overtime last month at Staples Center in their only game against the Grizzlies.

“We’ve got to do a better job of communicating defensively, of talking our way through things, a better job of getting our basic coverages down to where everybody’s always in the right position,” Dunleavy said. “If we want to be a playoff team, if we want to be the team we want to be, those are kind of the points of emphasis.”

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Dunleavy, on Stephon Marbury, who scored 42 points Sunday, making 15 of 20 shots, four of five from beyond the three-point arc: “We could have played him with nobody guarding him, him taking the same shots, and he probably couldn’t have got any more than he got.”

In three games against the Clippers this season, Marbury has averaged 37.3 points and 8.7 assists while making nearly 60% of his shots.

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Led by Elton Brand and Corey Maggette, who each made 14, the Clippers made 42 free throws Sunday, an NBA season high.... At this point last season the Clippers were 17-32 en route to a 27-55 finish.... If the Clippers rally to make the playoffs, their first-round opponent probably would be a division winner. They’re 0-5 against the current division leaders in the West, the Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings.