Clippers Suffer Future Shock

MEMPHIS — For 19 brief, shining moments, they were the Clippers Donald Sterling has always wanted them to be, the Clippers Alvin Gentry has hoped they would be, the Clippers the cross-town Lakers have feared they might be, the Clippers Lamar Odom and Elton Brand have waited for them to be.

They laughed in the face of adversity, wiping out a 32-point lead by the Memphis Grizzlies to go up by five before a stunned crowd of 14,789 at the Pyramid. They shot with sizzling accuracy, rebounded with ferocity, defended with determination and ran the court with unbridled energy.

At last, they were the Clippers advertised as the team of the future.

Alas, ultimately, they turned out to be the Clippers of their own dismal past, fading at the end to lose, 116-111.

Before the game, Gentry had described this season as “the season from hell.”

At the height of Friday night’s Clipper surge, which comprised the third quarter and half of the fourth, Gentry looked like a man who had found a piece of heaven.

But afterward, when the grim reality of a loss that dropped the Clippers to 12-21 had sunk in, his dark mood returned.

“The bottom line is, it’s a loss,” he said. “There are no moral victories. When you get down by 32, you have to play almost perfect basketball. And it can’t come down to that.”

In one corner of the Clipper locker room sat Corey Maggette, who had led the charge back on a night when he scored a career-high 34 points, hitting 10 of 19 field-goal attempts, five of eight from three-point range and nine of 10 from the free-throw line.

But there was no look of satisfaction on his face.

“We have to make something happen soon,” he said. “If not, we are going to be the laughingstock of the league.”

The Grizzlies came into the game as a candidate for that title. They began play with a 9-22 record, including 8-9 at home.

But with Clipper center Michael Olowokandi sitting out because of left-knee inflammation that has bothered him all season and guard Quentin Richardson suffering a sprained left ankle only three minutes into the game, Memphis took charge of the game early, going up, 19-8.

At that point, during a timeout, Gentry gathered his team, looked his huddled players in the face and said simply, “This is embarrassing.”

It remained so through most of the first 24 minutes. In racing to a 71-46 halftime advantage, the Grizzlies shot 60.4% from the field to the Clippers’ 33.3%. Odom got so disgusted at one point in the second quarter that he walked away from the huddle during a timeout and flung a white towel onto the court.

But after a momentous third quarter by the Clippers, it was the Grizzlies who appeared ready to toss in the towel.

Several Clipper players credited assistant coach Dennis Johnson with an inspirational halftime talk.

Words were soon turned into deeds as the Clippers outscored the Grizzlies, 40-19, in the third period. Led by Maggette and Elton Brand, who scored 12 points apiece, the Clippers shot 66.7%, leaving themselves only four back as the final period began.

When Maggette hit a three-pointer to push the Clippers ahead, 94-93, it marked their first lead on the road in three games.

“We let up,” conceded Memphis’ Drew Gooden. “A lot of teams would be comfortable with a 32-point lead. It would have been the worst loss I was ever associated with. But I never thought we would lose.”

The Grizzlies indeed came back, before Keyon Dooling’s three-point shot for the Clippers cut the Memphis lead to 112-111 with less than a minute to play.

But rookie guard Gordon Giricek, who scored a career-high 31 points, made a driving layup and the Grizzlies put the game out of reach on a free throw by Giricek and another by Lorenzen Wright.