Clippers Prevail, Weather or Not

Their overcoats and knit caps packed away, the Clippers flew home happily late Friday night, if for no other reason than Toronto was under an extreme-cold alert, with the temperature dipping below zero and the wind chill making it feel as if it were about 30 degrees cooler.

In the backs of their minds, however, they probably wondered what it would be like for them, generally warmer climes aside, if they weren’t assigned to play amid the bigger, wider bodies in the beefed-up Western Conference.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that, were they playing in the Eastern Conference, the Clippers might be a playoff team, and nothing that transpired in their 78-68 victory over the Toronto Raptors dispelled that notion.

Playing without two of their top three scorers, suspended forward Corey Maggette and injured guard Quentin Richardson, they wrapped up a 1-2 trip by outplaying a smallish, offensively-challenged team with the fifth-best record in the East.

And Chris Wilcox, who scored the Clippers’ first four points on a pair of spectacular dunks and finished with 17 points and eight rebounds in 24 minutes, was limited to only nine minutes in the second half because of back spasms.

“It was a real gut win for our guys,” Coach Mike Dunleavy said, “because we had to have it defensively to get the job done.... I was very proud of the club the way we played tonight.”

Winning for only the second time in their last 11 road games, after blowout losses at New Jersey and Philadelphia to start the trip, the Clippers took control by limiting the Raptors to 11 points on 31.3% shooting in the third quarter.

They outrebounded the Raptors, 41-32, and outscored them in the paint, 36-20, taking advantage of the absence of injured rookie center Chris Bosh.

In the end, the Raptors topped the all-time Clipper low for an opponent by only three points, even with the Clippers conceding a meaningless late-game layup to Jalen Rose, who led all scorers with 26 points on 11-of-19 shooting.

In front of 18,405 in the Air Canada Centre, the Raptors got only 12 points from scoring leader Vince Carter, who missed 13 of 18 shots, among them a fourth-quarter dunk that banged off the back of the rim.

Donyell Marshall, who scored 19 points in a 94-88 victory over the Clippers on Dec. 28 at Staples Center, scored two this time and missed all five of his shots.

“The mind-set was to salvage the trip,” said Elton Brand, who led the Clippers with 19 points and 14 rebounds. “You don’t want to go back 0-3, with your head down. It was like, ‘We’re missing two of our top players; it doesn’t matter.’ ”

Maggette was home, serving the second game of a two-game suspension for his Tuesday fight with Kenyon Martin of the New Jersey Nets, and Richardson watched from the bench with a sprained right hand.

“We realized that we were down in numbers and we regrouped,” said Glen Rice, who scored a season-high 11 points. “We seemed to fight for one another a lot more today, and I think that’s got to carry over for the rest of the season....

“The last two games we didn’t play up to our potential ... and I think in a lot of ways that woke us up. Definitely, you didn’t want to fly home with a big doughnut.”

They flew home instead with a 15-18 record. They’re only 4-11 away from Staples Center, but they don’t have to worry about that for a while.

They’ll play their next seven games in their home arena.

Unfortunately for them, only one is against a team from the East.