Defense Gets Priority on Eight-Game Trip

The Clippers leave today for Miami, where they will start an eight-game trip against the Heat on Friday. So if Coach Mike Dunleavy doesn’t have a good understanding of the players he has to work with now, he will by the time the Clippers reach the All-Star break next month.

In recent games, Dunleavy has gone with a starting lineup of Marko Jaric, Quentin Richardson, Corey Maggette, Elton Brand and Chris Kaman. The top players off the bench have been Eddie House, Doug Overton, Matt Barnes and Chris Wilcox. Even Melvin Ely’s playing time has increased in the last week or two.

The one player who has all but disappeared is Predrag Drobnjak, who had been the starter at center.

“We haven’t had the same production from him that we were getting in the early part of the season,” Dunleavy said of Drobnjak, who did not play Tuesday against the Chicago Bulls and has logged a total of 13 minutes in the Clippers’ last four games.

Dunleavy said he was not giving up on Drobnjak, who has made only five of his last 27 shots, but he wants to give players such as Kaman and Ely more playing time.

“I guess maybe it’s a confidence thing,” Dunleavy said. “But in order for him to play significant minutes, he needs to make shots ... defense and rebounding ... that’s not his strong points.”

Playing defense is how Barnes has earned a spot in Dunleavy’s rotation. Barnes is expected to sign his second 10-day contract before the Clippers play Miami.

Given a chance after Bobby Simmons was sidelined by a hip injury, the former UCLA starter has become Dunleavy’s ace defender against mobile power forwards.

Barnes, 6 feet 7 and 225 pounds, was selected by Memphis with the 43rd pick of the 2002 draft and traded to Cleveland the same day. He was cut by the Cavaliers in training camp and finished last season in the National Basketball Development League. In October, he was cut by Seattle in training camp and signed with the Long Beach Jam of the American Basketball Assn.

With so many road games on the Clippers’ immediate schedule, playing team defense will be a priority, so it seems likely Dunleavy will continue to give regular minutes to young players such as Wilcox, Ely and Barnes.

“It’s important for us to become more consistent on a nightly basis,” Dunleavy said. “Our defense is getting better, but we still need to be more consistent with our rotations and knowing what we’re doing with our reads.”

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The Clippers will practice today in Miami and will play the same Heat team that defeated them, 87-85, at Staples Center on Jan. 16. With former Clipper Lamar Odom quietly having a solid season, Miami has bounced back from an 0-7 start to play break-even basketball its last 38 games.

“It’s good in a sense that we just played them and we’re more familiar with them,” Dunleavy said. “But they are playing real well right now, and if you ask someone whether they would rather play a struggling team or a team playing well, the answer would be to play the struggling team.”

Odom is averaging nearly 17 points and is ninth in the league in rebounding with an average of 9.8. Odom had 11 points and 15 rebounds in Miami’s first game against the Clippers.