Clippers Go From 23 Points Down to Road Win : Reserves, Not Manning Reunion, Take Spotlight in Victory Over Spurs, 114-108

Danny Manning, the Clipper forward, and Ed Manning, the San Antonio Spurs assistant coach, did their best to act as if this father-and-son reunion wouldn’t make Friday night’s game special.

Those close to the pair, who hadn’t seen each other in months, knew otherwise.

“A couple of the Kansas kids came down for this,” said Spur Coach Larry Brown, who was Danny’s coach with the Jayhawks last season. When Brown made the move to San Antonio, he brought Ed, also his assistant at Kansas, with him.

“They knew they could tease Danny about how hard he’ll play,” Brown said of Danny’s former teammates. “He always plays hard, but they know how much pride he has, so I’m sure he wants to be great tonight. Ed tries to low-key the thing with Danny all the time, but inside this is really a thrill for him. I hope he (Danny) has the best game of his life tonight. And that we win.”

Brown didn’t get either wish. Danny (13 points, 6 turnovers) was anything but at his best, but the Clippers were at theirs in the second half, when they overcame a 23-point deficit to win, 114-108, at HemisFair Arena.

Winners of only 1 of their previous 14 games on the road, the Clippers, flattened the Spurs with a 30-6 run in the third quarter. They outscored San Antonio, 66-45, in the second half.

Such a showing nearly left Coach Gene Shue, who saw his team on the other end Tuesday night at Golden State, speechless. Asked if this was the Clippers’ biggest win of the season, he merely nodded. Over and over. With a big smile.

“It was a fantastic comeback,” he said. “Things didn’t look good at all. San Antonio was playing the hell out of us. Quite frankly, they were making us look bad.”

That was before Shue juggled his lineup. Reggie Williams, Greg Kite, Tom Garrick and Joe Wolf all played well off the bench. Ken Norman, Manning and, in the fourth quarter, Benoit Benjamin, stood out among the starters.

From down, 71-48, with 9:52 to play in the third quarter, the Clippers (9-17) went ahead, 78-77, with 2:11 left in the third quarter on a pair of Grant Gondrezick free throws. Just less than 8 minutes to make the big turnaround against the team that had defeated them 13 out of their last 15 meetings.

Brown felt like sticking his head in the sand. Reunions aside, it’s a day he’d like to forget.

“This is the low point of my career,” said Brown, who might change his mind in the next couple of days. “It’s miserable.”

Williams led the way, taking over after Quintin Dailey went out with a bruised left hip and 19 points in only 17 minutes. Williams finished with a game-high 25 points, making 9 of 14 shots from the field. He had 21 of those points on 7-of-11 shooting in the second half while getting plenty of room from defender Alvin Robertson.

“He’s a cheater on defense, always looking to steal the ball,” Williams said of Robertson, who finished second in the league in steals last season after winning the title the previous 2 seasons. “I caught him napping and I burned him.”

And lit a fire under the Clippers in the process.

Clipper Notes

The line for Danny Manning: 13 points, 5-of-11 shooting, 8 rebounds, 4 fouls, 6 turnovers in 33 minutes. . . . Attn. Disbelievers: Charles Smith did not play and the Clippers won. The Clippers were 0-8 in games he had missed, and he sat out this time because of continued wrist problems, injured when he fell Dec. 8 against Houston at the Sports Arena. . . . The hip injury to Quintin Dailey is not expected to cause him to miss any games.

Ryan Gray, the Lawrence, Kan., teen-ager befriended by Larry Brown during his coaching days at Kansas, brought the same success to the Spurs that he did last season to the Jayhawks. The 16-year-old Gray, who has an inoperable brain tumor and is confined to a wheelchair, was labeled as something of a good luck charm last season, when he attended most all Kansas games as the Jayhawks won the national championship. He then came to San Antonio to watch Wednesday’s game against Sacramento, and the Spurs snapped their 8-game losing streak. He was also in attendance to watch the Clippers. “I think, like all of the players at Kansas figured, it’s just nice to know he’s around,” Brown said of Gray, who wasn’t supposed to live past his 9th birthday. “Whether he has mystical powers for us, I don’t know. It’s just great to know he can come and watch us play, and that he gets to see another Christmas.” . . . The Clippers are off until Tuesday night, when they play Seattle at the Sports Arena.