If You Dislike Clippers, You Don’t Know Jack

It might be the Clippers’ finest moment, the team getting ready for a playoff game and the city’s No. 1 Lakers fan flying here to witness it.

I thought Donald Sterling was going to knock me over in his rush to touch Jack Nicholson, Jack backing away rather than giving Sterling his best work from “The Shining,” which meant Sterling put his hands on me.

Talk about taking one for the team.

I hung in there, Sterling rubbing my back while I asked Nicholson if he was finished with the Lakers, maybe upset that Kobe had tanked it down the stretch, and so now he was hopping on the Clippers’ bandwagon?

“Look,” he said, while tugging at his white shirt inside of a blue jacket. “Switzerland.”

Nicholson said he remains a Lakers fan, and when I asked if there’s just a little part of him rooting for the Clippers, he said, “I’m an NBA fan.”

I was beginning to enjoy the back rub, but then it was back to Kobe, Nicholson shaking his head emphatically, and now I understand why his hair is always mussed.

“No,” he said, he doesn’t believe Kobe quit on the Lakers in the seventh game against the Suns, doing his best to bring them back before halftime and then getting two bad calls to start the third quarter.

“There are some things we’ll never really know about Kobe,” Nicholson said. “But baby, he sure can play.”

Nicholson, while saying it was an easy choice selecting Steve Nash over Kobe for MVP this year -- “take away Lamar Odom, [the Suns losing Amare Stoudemire] and how would the Lakers have done?” -- said he was invited to fly to Phoenix by director James Brooks, a longtime Clippers fan.

“He got me two Oscars, so whatever he wants,” said Nicholson, who won under Brooks’ tutelage for “Terms of Endearment” and “As Good As It Gets.”

We discussed Phil Jackson, and when I began making fun of Jackson, it was obvious Nicholson couldn’t handle the truth.

“You don’t understand Phil Jackson,” he said. “He’s all about championships.”

“If that’s the case, then why did he agree to coach this group?” I said, and now I can see why some people consider Nicholson scary.

*

TNT’S CRAIG Sager came out of a commercial telling the TV audience Nicholson had jumped on the Clippers’ bandwagon, which prompted Jack to lean forward and tell him, “I came up here in case Charles [Barkley] gets tough with my man Kobe at halftime.”

By the time Kobe joins Barkley on the TNT set tonight, I expect Barkley, who was critical of Bryant earlier, to roll over and make nice with him.

*

MIKE DUNLEAVY blew it in Game 1, taking Elton Brand to rest, like a basketball player needs rest at this time of year when he’s days away from playing golf for months, and so the Clippers lost.

The media brought it to Dunleavy’s attention after the game, scolded him -- he learned, and the Clippers won Game 2.

In Game 3 Dunleavy blew it again, going with Shaun Livingston, the kid, while keeping Sam Cassell and his 100 games of playoff experience on the bench.

The media pointed out his error, scolded him once again, he learned, and Cassell emerged the fourth-quarter hero in Game 4.

The good news, of course, is that Dunleavy appeared capable of learning at this late stage in life, and so much for that business of old dogs not being able to learn new tricks. That’s why I came here Tuesday, all the way to Phoenix to talk to him before Game 5, to maybe keep him from blowing it again.

Odd, but he seemed to think he had everything under control, and he even bristled when I began to remind him how things went while trying to do it on his own.

“So you’re saying you don’t need our help?” I asked.

“You know what,” Dunleavy said with some attitude. “If you just put a gun to my head, I’d say you were right.”

Here I’m thinking maybe we’ll come up with hand signals so he does the right thing, or maybe one of the team’s PR guys can relay messages to the bench, and Dunleavy seems to think it’s time to shed the training wheels.

“Most of you guys don’t understand,” he began, and as often as I’ve heard that from Jackson, I began to worry about Dunleavy, knowing how the Lakers’ season went.

*

DUNLEAVY BLEW it again. A playoff classic and the Clippers’ playoff hopes riding on the inexperience of Livingston. I guess the media are going to have to straighten him out once again.

*

ARIZONA REPUBLIC columnist Dan Bickley spent time recently with the Cardinals’ new quarterback, Matt Leinart, obviously trying to score an introduction with Paris Hilton -- and I apologize for the error if it was really Nick Lachey he was hoping to meet.

Bickley also chatted with Leinart’s mom and dad, and by the tone of his column he will be joining them all for Thanksgiving dinner.

Under the headline, “Hollywood image isn’t Leinart” -- although there’s no mention of Leinart’s big party at the MGM’s Pure nightclub in Las Vegas recently in which everyone was urged to come and meet his celebrity friends -- we discover Leinart and his family are troubled with his Hollywood image.

“I don’t blame [USC Coach] Pete Carroll for any of this,” Matt’s father, Bob, is quoted as saying. “But he encourages Hollywood people to come to practice ... Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell. I don’t think he saw the repercussions.”

Those repercussions, according to Bickley’s column, included having Matt’s picture shown on the Internet recently leaving Hilton’s mansion in the morning.

It’s amazing the crosses some people have to carry.

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