Jaric Leads L.A. to Victory

A visit from the New Jersey Nets doesn’t stir the senses the way it did in recent seasons, when the Nets were an Eastern power.

The stripped-down Nets, game but undermanned, are among the worst teams in the NBA, losers of seven consecutive games after the Clippers breezed to a 101-88 victory Thursday in front of 12,629 in Staples Center.

The Clippers, led by point guard Marko Jaric, ended a three-game losing streak and climbed back to .500 in their only scheduled national television appearance of the season. They will play another last-place team, the Golden State Warriors, tonight at Oakland and Sunday at Staples Center.

Jaric made four of five three-point shots and matched a season high with 23 points, one of five Clippers in double figures. He also had six assists.

Elton Brand scored 17 points and had seven rebounds. Corey Maggette scored 16 points, 14 in the first half. Bobby Simmons scored 13, Mikki Moore 12.

“I thought we played a pretty solid game all the way around,” said Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy, whose team made 53.2% of its shots while limiting the Nets to 43.4% shooting. “Overall, the effort was great.”

Center Chris Kaman made his season debut for the Clippers, scoring seven points and getting four rebounds in 16 minutes as a reserve after sitting out the season’s first 11 games because of a sprained left ankle.

But Kerry Kittles, who made his Clipper debut Sunday, sat out against his former team after suffering a hyperextended right knee Tuesday in practice.

Richard Jefferson scored 24 points to lead the Nets.

The Nets, who haven’t won since Nov. 9, are only a shell of the team that won Eastern Conference championships in 2002 and 2003. Kittles and Kenyon Martin were traded in cost-cutting moves last summer, with the Nets getting only draft picks in return, and Jason Kidd is recovering from off-season knee surgery.

Kidd and center Alonzo Mourning, the Nets’ No. 2 scorer and rebounder, desperately want out, Mourning to the point that he takes his complaints to the media almost daily, bashing the organization at every turn.

This week, he ripped the team’s new ownership for a lack of commitment, acknowledging “of course” he would rather be elsewhere.

During a Monday team meeting with the Nets’ new principal owner, Mourning told reporters that he asked Bruce Ratner why he bought the team.

“He said, ‘To move it to Brooklyn.’ I didn’t hear, ‘To win,’ or ‘To win a championship,’ ” Mourning said. “I just shook my head.... I want to win.”

Of the trade that sent Martin to the Denver Nuggets, Mourning said, “It made no sense. When management makes a decision like that, you can’t do anything but shake your head.... I was just baffled. It just let me know that the commitment to winning was not there anymore.”

Kittles, though no longer part of the organization, also expressed his frustration over the dismantling of a championship contender.

“You work so hard to build a respectable organization and we finally got a team together that was very competitive and a team a lot of teams in this league feared playing against,” Kittles said this week.

Now, the Nets inspire no fear.

Still, they overcame an early 15-8 deficit and four times took the lead in the second quarter before Maggette scored six points and Brand four during a 10-1 quarter-ending run that gave the Clippers a 48-39 halftime lead.

The Clippers made 63% of their shots in the first half, their season high for a half, and might have held a bigger lead if not for 12 turnovers.

The Nets never got closer than six points in the second half.