Smooth Sailing Turns Into a Familiar Clipper Journey

It’s not often the Clippers have things completely go their way, but they had that for nearly a half Saturday night against the Sacramento Kings.

The Clippers scored the first 13 points of the game and Sacramento didn’t get its first basket until almost the halfway mark of the opening quarter.

The Clippers even had a 23-point lead early in the second quarter. Then Sacramento power forward Chris Webber and his teammates snapped out of their funk.

In a matter of minutes, the Kings shot the smiles off the Clipper faces, rallying within four points by halftime and then pulling away in the fourth quarter for a 104-83 victory before 18,964 at Staples Center.

The Clippers, who set a franchise record by limiting the Kings to eight points in the first quarter, have lost three in a row following back-to-back victories.

Said Derek Anderson, who led the Clippers with 25 points: “We always come out and run teams. But in the second half, teams do it right back to us.”

To put it kindly, prosperity and the Clippers just do not mix.

With rookie Lamar Odom setting the table throughout the first quarter, the Clippers definitely looked more like a team headed for the playoffs than the Kings.

Odom controlled the flow of play until he left the game with three fouls and the Clippers ahead, 42-22. With Odom on the bench, Sacramento went on 19-3 run to finish the half down by only 45-41--with Webber scoring 10 points.

“When Lamar got into foul trouble, it seemed to take the wind out of our sails a little bit,” interim Coach Jim Todd said. “We lost a little direction out on the floor. With him out, we weren’t able to take advantage of doing the things we were trying to do.”

The first half statistics were heavily in the Clippers’ favor. They made 48.8% of their shots, compared to the Kings’ 32.6%. And with 15 combined rebounds from Eric Piatkowski and Odom, the Clippers held a 29-17 rebounding edge.

“At halftime, we all said let’s not be down,” Todd said. “We were still up by four.”

But in the second half, the Kings picked up where they left off, only this time center Vlade Divac joined the party. Sacramento scored the first 10 points of the third quarter and had a 56-49 lead before the Clippers knew what hit them.

The Clippers, however, battled back and Piatkowski made sure they didn’t trail to start the fourth quarter when he made a last-second steal and closed the third with a three-point basket at the buzzer to tie the game at 68.

That only seemed to make the Kings angry. They scored 11 of the first 12 points of the final quarterand never looked back. Sacramento outscored the Clippers, 36-15, in the quarter.

“We were lucky, we came back when we started playing our basketball,” Divac said. “Early in the game we didn’t do that.

“I knew we could come back if we started playing like we should. For a quarter and a half, we settled for a lot of jump shots and they got the rebound and scored on fastbreaks. We can’t play like that.”

Divac led Sacramento with 20 points. The Kings also received strong production off the bench from guards Pedrag Stojakovic (20 points) and Tony Delk (12).

Odom had 18 points and nine rebounds before fouling out and Piatkowski had a career-high 13 rebounds for the Clippers, who are 5-35 since Dec. 26.