A Unique Mother’s Day Spent With the Clippers

The mother of my children is a Clippers fan.

When I met her she was a Cubs fan. I should’ve guessed she had a thing for losers, but of course it almost goes without saying her luck changed when she got married.

Right now she’s wearing a loud red Clippers T-shirt, sitting in Staples Center with the rest of the energized Clipper Nation, and carrying on like some kind of Beatles-crazed teenager.

She’s a grandmother now, her 10-month-old granddaughter is in her lap and dressed in a Clippers onesie, like the kid has any say these days what she wears.

But then as long as the kid has lived, the Clippers have been the best professional basketball team in town, and as far as she is concerned, Donald Sterling really knows how to put a team together.

The whole family is here for the Clippers game. It’s Mother’s Day, and that’s where the mother wanted to spend it.

Right now she’s beating her grown daughters over the head with red noise sticks, which is odd, because the Grocery Store Bagger is also sitting there.

It’s red everywhere you look in Staples Center, free T-shirts passed out at the doors to everyone, and no one around here seems to care whether Kobe tanked.

The Clippers are still in the playoffs, and it’s just fun for the Clipper Nation, growing day by day. Where else can you club your daughters over the head and have everyone around you keeping time to the music?

It’s a given. The Lakers are supposed to make the playoffs, marching through them in businesslike fashion, while everyone makes plans to attend the parade. The Clippers have never played basketball as late as Mother’s Day.

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BRAD LILLEY is dressed in a white warm-up suit, which makes you wonder whether Al Davis left it behind when he left town. Lilley is the same guy a couple of years ago who turned up the music in Dodger Stadium per orders from above, so he’s an expert when it comes to making noise.

It’s Lilley’s task now as obnoxious cheerleader to pump up the Clippers crowd during the extended TV timeouts. Before the clinching game against Denver in the first round, though, Lilley learned his mother had died.

Today he’s wearing a pair of tennis shoes with “Mom” written in pen on them, and doing what he does best on Mother’s Day, securing the home-court advantage for the Clippers.

Granny is so wrapped up in what’s happening on the court she’s not eating. Later, family members, requesting anonymity, would say it’s the longest she’s ever gone in one stretch. I was surprised, frankly, the Bagger would say such a thing.

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THE FIRST quarter begins with the Suns leading, 9-2, but then Sam Cassell has the Clippers ahead by five. Cassell might not have been born in Hollywood, but his act was made for this stage and makes the Clippers even that more entertaining.

Throw in the Suns’ exciting brand of basketball along with the history-making appearance by the Clippers, and I think that explains why the crowd here spent a good portion of the game on its feet.

The Clippers pull ahead by 10 at the half, the final two coming on a Shaun Livingston tip with less than a second to play, and while the grandkid still doesn’t know how to say, “da, da,” granny swears later the kid said, “Way to go, Shaun.”

The Clipper Spirit takes the floor in tight, black-velvet pants, pulled-up T-shirts to accentuate an advertisement across their chests, and I’m so happy granny is here so later when I tell her all about it she’ll know I wasn’t exaggerating.

Lara Flynn Boyle is sitting in front of me, Terrell Owens directly behind me, and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) from “Scooby Doo” movie fame is almost on the court screaming at the referees that they’re killing the Clippers.

The people in L.A. are getting into it. Cassell scores 10 straight points in the third quarter, and granny is waving the baby in the air like one of those noise sticks, and if the kid grows up thinking everybody is supposed to get excited like this at a sports event, what a disappointment if she ever goes to a Dodgers game.

Coach Mike Dunleavy plays Cassell in the fourth quarter, something he didn’t do in the last loss, and obviously now he’s listening to the media.

“Oh yeah,” he says later. “I was sitting there the whole time thinking what the sportswriters wanted me to do. Peer pressure finally got me.”

The Suns knock a 13-point Clipper lead down to one, Cassell hits the biggest shot of the game because Dunleavy is now listening to the sportswriters, and the Clippers guarantee a return visit to Staples on Thursday.

I’ve never seen granny so excited, which really made it kind of unnecessary to send flowers for Mother’s Day, as I explained to her later.

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THE DELERAY Family, John, Alicia, Zack, James and Jake, e-mailed to say they intend to add to the Corey Maggette/Clippers donation of $100,000 to the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, contributing $800, including money set aside by their 10-year-old son from his allowance every month. Throw in another $2,800 for another Clippers playoff win, and the donation drive that Maggette initiated to start the season is now more than $103,000.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Rick Albert:

“My daughter is a communications major at UCLA with hopes of getting into journalism. I can only hope she doesn’t find role models like you that live to alienate your audience -- with no ethics or facts.”

Who needs a role model -- when she has her father?

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.