Clippers Put 76ers in a Good Humor : Pro basketball: L.A. loses, 128-105, after playing well in victory at Indiana Saturday. It is club’s fourth-worst loss of season.

PHILADELPHIA —  Charles Barkley, having played only 29 minutes, had some energy to expend. The Philadelphia 76er forward was finished with the Clippers, so he went looking for the next best target.

“Jimmy Lynam!” Barkley shouted in the locker room, searching for his coach. “Where’s Jimmy Lynam?”

Nowhere to be found, but Barkley had a complaint, wondering why he couldn’t go back in the game in the fourth quarter while only one assist and three rebounds away from a triple-double. Someone asked if he was so eager for such an achievement because he would get a bonus.

“No,” he said. “I just have to find something to humor myself with.”

It was that kind of game Monday night at the Spectrum. A laugher, ridiculously so. Not a whole lot of fun in that, leading by 16 points in the second quarter and 26 in the third en route to a 128-105 victory over the Clippers.

“We did stink the place up tonight,” said Clipper forward Ken Norman, who did his part by going four for 14 from the field. “We really did. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Several theories were offered--a letdown after Saturday’s victory at Indiana, more trouble on the road--but the Clippers simply played poorly against a good team in suffering their fourth-worst loss of the season.

“We were in a recovery phase from the second quarter on,” Coach Don Casey said.

Which is only the norm for this town. The Clippers have lost 20 consecutive games at the Spectrum, a streak that dates to Oct. 31, 1975.

Then there is the Clippers’ inconsistency, going from a very good performance to a very bad one. What Casey calls the elasticity of a young team.

“That’s true,” Norman said. “And it sometimes seems that way. But because we’re young, I think we should be up all the time. We should have young legs and be hyper all the time.”

Charles Smith led the Clippers with 22 points. No teammate had more than 13, and no one topped six rebounds on a night when the Clippers were beaten on the boards, 57-43. Winston Garland added 10 points, eight assists and six rebounds.

The 76ers’ Hersey Hawkins had a game-high 28 points, and Mike Gminski added 25 on 11-of-14 shooting and 10 rebounds.

Barkley, who finished with 11 points, came out for good with 3:24 left in the third quarter and the game well under control. A rest would have been fine, but he wanted to go back in.

“I had fun,” Barkley said. “I would have had more fun if I got the triple-double.”

Clipper Notes

A moment of silence was held before the game to honor Loyola Marymount’s Hank Gathers, who collapsed during a game Sunday in Los Angeles and later died. Gathers was a high school star in Philadelphia. Clipper Coach Don Casey spent 2 1/2 hours with Gathers last Monday on campus, discussing everything from the upcoming NCAA tournament to the June NBA draft to living around Philadelphia.

“He seemed very good,” said Casey, a native of nearby Collingswood, N.J., and a coach at Temple University in the city for nine years. “He was very alert, very anxious about the future. Happy, talking about how when he signed with the pros what he wanted to do for his family.” Casey also phoned Lion Coach Paul Westhead Monday morning to console his friend. “He was numb,” Casey said.

With Jay Edwards having been moved to the suspended list after flunking a league-administered drug test, the Clippers now have a spot open on the injured list. Previously, they had been at the limit of three. . . . The Clippers will play the New Jersey Nets Wednesday night.