Clippers Banished by the Kings

In the old days, meaning any time before this season, the Clippers’ 101-89 loss to the Sacramento Kings at Staples Center Saturday night would have been a time for hand-wringing and finger-pointing.

It’s Super Sunday, the end of the football season and the halfway point of the NBA season, the time the Clippers usually start their downward spiral into oblivion.

And indeed, the loss was the Clippers’ seventh straight, dropping the Pacific Division cellar dwellers to 13-31.

This is the time that owner Donald Sterling usually starts asking everybody in town what he is doing wrong.

This is the time Clipper coaches start updating their resumes.

This is the time players start looking for the exit.

This is the time the empty seats far outnumber those that are filled.

So why is none of that happening?

Why is Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry still optimistic?

Why are the players still positive?

Why was there a sellout crowd of 19,341 on hand, which, combined with a Kings hockey sellout in the afternoon, set a Staples Center one-day crowd record of 37,459.

Because, justified or not, people still believe in this talent-laden, but young and inexperienced Clipper team.

“There’s not a whole lot to say,” Gentry said. “They [the Kings] are a good team. We didn’t play that bad, but at times they just ran off and left us.”

No argument there.

While the Clippers may or may not be the team of the future, the future has arrived for the Kings, a club that could match the Clippers’ sob story for sob story in the past.

In improving to 29-12, Sacramento lived up to its billing as one of the top teams in the league.

And forward Chris Webber lived up to his billing as one of the top contenders for this season’s most-valuable-player award.

Webber hit 15 of 21 shots Saturday night, scored a game-high 33 points, and added 11 rebounds and five assists.

Gentry tried a string of defenders on him--Darius Miles, Lamar Odom, Cherokee Parks and Derek Strong. Webber took on all comers without missing a step.

“It was a real tough situation,” Gentry said. “It’s hard to double [team] Webber because they have so many good shooters on the floor.”

Burned most often was Miles, the Clippers’ 19-year-old rookie forward. And it doesn’t figure to get any easier for Miles, who will be asked to defend the San Antonio Spurs’ Tim Duncan on Monday night and Wednesday night in back-to-back games.

“To ask a 19-year-old to guard Chris Webber is unfair,” Gentry said. “But now at least Darius sees where he has to get to if he wants to be a great player in this league.”

The same could be said for Miles’ teammates.

The balanced Kings got double-figure scoring from five other players, they got an additional 11 rebounds from former Laker Vlade Divac and they got the strong defensive play up and down the court that has turned them from a flashy offensive club into a serious contender for the NBA title.

High scorers for the Clippers were Miles, Parks and Jeff McInnis, each with 16 points.

Parks also had 13 rebounds on a night when, surprisingly, the Clippers won the battle of the boards, 45-44, and outshot the Kings from the floor, 46% to 45.6%.

But they lost the scoreboard battle as the Kings soared into an early lead and coasted the rest of the way.

Still, when it was over, the Kings joined the ever-louder chorus around the league that there is a special team in Los Angeles and they are not talking about the one in purple and gold.

“Talking to guys around the league,” Webber said, “they say that you have to come out here and be ready to play. You have give them [the Clippers] respect because it’s like a different organization now.

“They’re a young, frightening team.”

The Clippers were always a frightening team. The difference is, now it’s the other guys who are scared.