Enthusiasm Wanes in Clipper Loss

The Clippers’ losing streak reached five games Thursday night with a 106-91 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers at the Sports Arena.

Not coincidentally, their emotions, real or imagined, reached bottom.

“That’s gone, isn’t it?” said Ron Harper, who had 16 points to tie Ken Norman for team-high honors on a night the Clippers shot 43.2% from the field and 50% (16 of 32) from the free-throw line.

“It gets to a point where it’s very frustrating. It gets to the point where you’re thinking, ‘When does the season end?’ if we continue to go like this. It is early in the year and the guys don’t want to call it quits, but this is frustrating.

“We had good enthusiasm in the first half. Or fake enthusiasm. The second half, we had no enthusiasm at all.”

This much, to be sure, is very real: The Clippers have lost six of seven to drop to 5-7, and, much like the first game of the home-and-home series 48 hours earlier, stayed close early and then got left in the dust. In winning on the road for only the second time in five tries, the Trail Blazers led by as many as 21 points in the fourth quarter.

“We really work our tails off defensively,” Portland’s Clyde Drexler said after his 24-point, 11-rebound showing. “Our defense was a little better in the second half. We were able to stop them defensively and got our transition game off and running.”

After Tuesday’s game at Portland, Clipper Coach Mike Schuler’s message to his players was constant: minimize turnovers against a team that feasts on the transition game, and keep the Trail Blazers from offensive rebounds.

With that, the Clippers committed 12 turnovers in the first half and allowed Portland 17 second-chance points. Two of those baskets were tip-ins by Drexler, one of the game’s best offensive rebounding guards.

Still, the Clippers led at halftime, 51-50. Harper scored 16 points and made three of four three-point shots, and Danny Manning and Gary Grant added 10 points each.

The Trail Blazers were behind despite 11 offensive rebounds.

By Schuler’s count, Portland outscored the Clippers, 47-16, on fast-break points in their previous meeting. But when the Trail Blazers pulled away Thursday, the main weapon was Terry Porter’s outside shooting, which helped turn a 58-54 lead into a 12-point cushion.

Porter struck first from the left side with 7:42 left in the third quarter, then again the next time down court. Finally, after the teams exchanged baskets, his three-pointer from the right side put the Trail Blazers ahead, 69-61.

When Buck Williams scored inside and Cliff Robinson got a foul-aided three-point play, the lead was 73-61. From 54-54, the Trail Blazers had a 19-7 run and built that into an 81-69 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Clipper Notes

Danny Manning went into Thursday’s game as the Clippers’ leading scorer at 18.6 points, but nowhere is his off-season training that resulted in losing 15 pounds paying off more than blocked shots. He had 1.91 an outing heading into the Portland contest; his previous best was 0.96 as a rookie in 1988-89. The weight loss helps his leaping, but a gentleman’s bet with teammate Ron Harper about who will finish with more blocks serves as added motivation. “I feel if I get hustle stats--a couple of blocks, a couple of steals--that helps me stay active in the game,” said Manning, who tied his career high of four blocked shots in the season opener at Sacramento and had two in eight of the nine games before Thursday. “And it helps us in the transition game to get easy baskets.”

Doc Rivers, back in the lineup after missing three games because of strained ligaments in his left thumb, will play with the hand bandaged for at least two games. He scrimmaged without a splint for the first time Wednesday and found that catching balls and making two-handed passes caused some pain, but, like everyone in the Clipper medical staff, was pleasantly surprised he could return so soon. The injury, suffered while scrambling for a loose ball with San Antonio’s Antoine Carr last Wednesday, was originally expected to put Rivers on the injured list. The other positive note is his bruised left knee, caused by bumping with Dikembe Mutombo of Denver, healed while he was sidelined.