| It’s Automatic: Clippers Lose In Utah Authored by Graham Flashner - March 1, 2005 - 3:26 am
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After last night’s excruciating 87-86 loss, they’ve now dropped 31 of their last 32 games in Utah, a stretch that dates back to April of 1989.
It was one thing to lose to the Jazz of Karl Malone and John Stockton. Last night, the Clippers were beaten by guys named McLeod, Okur, and Kirilenko.
Though the Clippers sported a 6-21 road record coming in, they were coming off two straight home victories – against the Timberwolves and Hawks – and were playing a Jazz team minus its leading scorer, Carlos Boozer. If there was a ever a road victory to be had, the opportunity seemed ripe.
Trailing by a point with seconds to play, they had the last shot, and momentum on their side. Bobby Simmons had cut an 87-83 lead to one with a three-point shot, Keith McLeod missed two free throws with 6.5 seconds left, and suddenly Rick Brunson was racing downcourt and firing a shovel pass to Bobby Simmons under the basket. Positioned a bit too close to the baseline, Simmons tried to flick the ball softly off the glass, but his lay-up went up too hard off the backboard, falling off the rim by inches as time expired.
As they did six times on their recent road trip, the Clippers once again came up short in a game decided by three or fewer points.
And once again, the game came down to a failure to execute in the final frantic minutes. As the season progresses, the Clippers’ lack of point guard leadership has proved crucial in the fourth quarter. With their leading candidate, rookie Shaun Livingston, having been sidelined for more than half the year, the Clips have not found a floor general to lead them at crunch time. Though they did pick up veteran point Kenny Anderson on Monday, he did not play against the Jazz.
In what’s become an all-too-familiar road scenario, the Clippers missed their big shots down the stretch, while giving up a fatal dose of second shots. The Jazz grabbed 6 of their 12 offensive rebounds in the foruth quarter, leading to 7 second-chance points. The most important resulted in an off-balance three-point play (on a very questionable foul call) by Mehmet Okur, after the Jazz killed over 40 seconds of clock. The Jazz helped their cause by making all 23 of their free throws.
Simmons scored 17 points, Maggette 16, and Elton Brand had 10 points and 8 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to stave off the Clippers’ latest Jekyll-and-Hyde performance away from home.
They also lost a golden opportunity to pick up a game on the Lakers, and remain 4 games back in the race for the final playoff spot in the West.
Clipboard: The Clippers only win at the Delta Center came on January 22, 2003, when they were led by Andre Miller and Lamar Odom… Chris Wilcox’s enigmatic season continues: after sparking the Clippers 111-104 win against Atlanta Sunday night, scoring 9 points in the final 8 minutes of the fourth quarter, he played only four minutes and went scoreless in Utah. Prior to his surprise appearance against the Hawks, Wilcox had been on the bench for 7 of the Clippers’ last 11 games and had played a grand total of 43 minutes.
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