These Teams Are Notoriously Lacking in the Animosity Factor

The problem with not making a playoff appearance since the year Biggie Smalls got shot is you can’t develop rivalries.

When you see the same team repeatedly with the season on the line, the animosity ramps up. That’s what leads to Shaquille O’Neal calling the Sacramento Kings the “Queens,” or Tim Hardaway describing his feelings for the New York Knicks: “I hate them with all the hate you can hate with.”

Mmmmmm-mmm, that’s some good hatin’.

This Clipper crew -- none of whom was on the squad when the team last went to the playoffs in 1997 -- doesn’t have a beef with anyone. Definitely not the Denver Nuggets, their opponent in this opening-round series that begins tonight at Staples Center.

“I like the Nuggets,” Cuttino Mobley said. “I like their team. They hustle, they play hard, they pass the ball, and George Karl’s a good guy. Carmelo [Anthony], I love his game.”

I went to the other side. There’s no easier thing to find in the NBA than a bitter ex-Clipper. Surely Earl Boykins would carry a grudge from when the Clippers cut him loose four years ago.

Uh-uh.

“I enjoyed playing for the Clippers,” Boykins said by phone. “Not too many guys actually say that. I had a good experience.

“We were a young team. Elton [Brand], Corey [Maggette], Darius [Miles] and Q [Quentin Richardson], they were all fun guys. When I was there, it was sort of the beginning of what they have now.”

No rage that they didn’t believe in him, that they were just another short-sighted group that didn’t think a 5-foot-5 guard could make it in the NBA?

“When I left the Clippers, I felt like a regular person who had just lost a job,” Boykins said. “No big deal. Get another job. I always viewed it as a job. When you lose a job, you’ve got to go get another job so you can eat.”

With an attitude like that, how are Clipper fans supposed to boo him? OK, booing Boykins would be like booing the Easter Bunny.

Sam Cassell played for the Minnesota Timberwolves when they tangled with the Nuggets in a contentious opening-round series two years ago. Yet not even Cassell -- who’ll say whatever’s on his mind, sometimes without anyone asking -- has anything bad to say about the Nuggets.

“It doesn’t carry over,” Cassell said.

He once dropped 40 points on Denver point guard Andre Miller, but Cassell isn’t exploiting that, either.

“It was a long time ago,” Cassell said. “I don’t even remember that night. Different scenario. Different team. Andre played well that day, as a matter of fact. It was just I made a couple of three-point shots.”

The best we can do is a little gamesmanship, which came from the Clippers’ making no secret that they’d rather be seeded sixth and have home-court advantage against the third-seeded Nuggets than finish fifth and travel to Dallas to open the playoffs against the Mavericks. The Nuggets tied for the conference’s seventh-best record but were awarded one of the top three seedings because they won the Northwest Division.

So Karl adopted the approach that if the Clippers would rather face the Nuggets, the Nuggets weren’t afraid to see the Clippers.

“I think we’re in a great situation,” Karl told the Denver media. “We’re not playing Tim Duncan. We’re not playing Shaquille O’Neal. We’re not playing a championship team. We’re playing an inexperienced, good team.”

Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy’s reaction: Yeah, whatever.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of stuff about how they’ve been trying to build their motivation,” Dunleavy said. “If that’s what you’ve got to [do], go for it. Our motivation is to win a ring. Our motivation is, you have to come take care of business.”

All right, we’re heading in the right direction.

“It’s starting to get like that a little bit because of the whole seeding situation and the talk back and forth,” Brand said. “But I wouldn’t call it a rivalry yet.”

It has the chance to grow into one because this series will go long. More games equals more animosity. Neither team finished the season strongly, with injuries to Maggette and Boykins contributing to each team’s late slide. But both sides are reasonably intact for the series.

The Nuggets -- the fifth-highest scoring team in the league -- like to push the ball, pass quickly and shoot quickly. The Clippers make their hay by playing defense and rebounding. Playoff games tend to have a slower tempo, which favors the Clippers. And so does the home-court advantage. The team with home court has won 75% of the first-round series since 1984.

The Nuggets will take advantage of the Clippers’ inexperience to swipe a couple of extra games, but ultimately the Clippers will prevail in Game 7.

Why? Because their best player, Brand, has the right approach to his first postseason.

When I asked him if he disliked anyone on the Nuggets, he took the bait.

“I dislike their whole team and staff,” Brand said.

Sounds like someone’s ready for the playoffs.

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J.A Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adandeblog.