Cassell has Clippers’ back

The Battle for L.A., as it were, came down to two things.

The Clippers weren’t about to let Kobe Bryant totally ruin their night.

And they weren’t about to let their hallway rivals put a serious dent in their playoff hopes.

In the end, they withstood Bryant’s 50 points and erased a 17-point third-quarter deficit, Clipper Nation exhaling as one after a 118-110 victory Thursday over the Lakers at Staples Center.

Sam Cassell came back from a series of back issues to lead a spirited fourth-quarter comeback, loading his teammates on his back -- figuratively, of course -- as the Clippers (38-40) pulled into a tie with Golden State for eighth place in the Western Conference.

The Lakers (40-39), on the other hand, continued to lose their once-overwhelming grip on a playoff spot. They lead the Clippers and Golden State by only 1 1/2 games for seventh place. It will only get tougher tonight with a game in Phoenix.

The story line appeared to tilt heavily toward Bryant, who became the first player to score 50 or more points in nine games in a season since Wilt Chamberlain also had nine 50-plus games in the 1964-65 season.

Then Bryant went quiet, as did the Lakers, the former scoring six points in the fourth quarter and his team scoring only 17, a pittance compared to the 32 scored by the Clippers in the final 12 minutes.

Corey Maggette scored 39 points, a career high. Elton Brand had 32 and Cassell had 12, eight of them in the fourth quarter.

“With the way I’ve been feeling all year, any win is a great win for me, but we really needed this,” said Cassell, who had missed the previous five games. “Corey Maggette played big. Oh man, Corey Maggette. Elton Brand played big. Quinton Ross. We really needed this one tonight. I just wanted to come out here and do what I could to help my ballclub.”

Said Maggette: “The biggest thing is that me and E.B. tried to run a two-man game, just to try to open it up. E.B. started making some shots, and when they started doubling him I started making some plays and getting other people involved.

“We’re just trying to win, man. That’s what it really boils down to. We played our hearts out and came up with the win.”

And with that, the teams split the four-game season series for a third consecutive season.

It sure looked like a Lakers kind of night earlier, when Bryant’s three-pointer provided a 74-57 lead with 8:26 left in the third quarter. But the Clippers cut into the lead, and their playoff prospects were looking better after a 26-8 surge down the stretch.

Maggette’s three-point play on a driving layup and a free throw forged a 102-102 tie with 6:34 to play, and a three-pointer by Tim Thomas with 5:41 left gave the Clippers the lead for good, 105-103.

“We can’t make plays. We can’t hold a lead,” Lakers forward Lamar Odom said. “There’s not a team we can’t lose to right now. ... No lead is big enough for us right now. When we get a big lead, we just get lazy.”

The rhetoric ahead of time almost matched the game itself.

Clippers guard Jason Hart referred to it beforehand as the Clippers’ “biggest game of the season.”

Cassell was also spurred into action after having played only 17 minutes in the previous 11 games because of back spasms. He’d hoped to wait another game or two to come back, but Cassell said his team was “desperate” and so he played Thursday.

Lakers Coach Phil Jackson also jumped into the rhetorical pool, knowing his team had lost six of eight before Thursday.

“The situation is that both of us are desperate for this kind of a win to give us some legs in this season,” he said beforehand.

Then the Lakers got off to such a bad start -- falling behind by 11 halfway through the first quarter -- that a fan yelled, “Put in Brian Shaw.”

Shaw, in his third season as an assistant coach, stayed in his suit on the bench.

The Lakers managed to play better, with Bryant leading the way. He had 25 points on 11-for-17 shooting in the first half as they took a 55-51 halftime edge.

But the Clippers weren’t to be denied. The fourth quarter was theirs, and the playoffs remain a real possibility for a second consecutive season.

It remains to be seen if the same can be said for the Lakers.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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Playoff race

A look at the teams fighting for the last three playoff positions in the Western Conference:

*--* W L GB 6. Denver 42 36 23 7. LAKERS 40 39 25 1/2 t8. Golden State 38 40 27 t8. CLIPPERS 38 40 27 10. New Orleans 37 41 1

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