It Is Clippers’ Turn to Do the Laughing

After playing the role as punching bag for 24 of their first 26 games, the Clippers finally got a chance to deliver a knockout punch Saturday night and they made sure it counted.

Just ask the Utah Jazz and Karl Malone.

The Clippers took out their frustration on the Jazz and sent the Mailman to the showers early with a shocking 103-77 victory before 14,293 at the Arrowhead Pond. It was the Clippers’ largest winning margin in six years of playing at Anaheim.

This was not supposed to happen. After all, the Jazz entered with the league’s second-best record and the Clippers. . . . well, you know, the worst.

But every dog has his night and Saturday’s was the Clippers (3-24).

“Guys came out pretty hard, making our shots,” said rookie Tyrone Nesby, who had a couple of crowd-pleasing dunks to go with 16 points and a career-high seven rebounds. “One good thing was that we were not selfish. The guys were passing the ball around, and that’s something we need to do every game.”

Greg Ostertag, Greg Foster and Todd Fuller may not be in the same level of the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal but they are NBA centers, and Clipper rookie Michael Olowokandi had a field day against them.

“They came out and really pounded it inside with [Olowokandi],” Utah’s Jeff Hornacek said. “They got six or eight points from him right off the bat and then we started to scramble.”

Olowokandi helped the Clippers get off to a fast start and he and his teammates never looked back. Olowokandi, who has been staying out of foul trouble recently, finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds.

“We know we had it in us, and tonight we played mature, and disciplined,” Olowokandi said. “And everything fell into place.”

Olowokandi had plenty of help. Eric Piatkowski made a career-high 12 of 13 free throws and had a team-high 18 points. Lamond Murray had 15 points and seven rebounds off the bench, but it was Maurice Taylor, who scored 12 points despite playing on a sore right ankle, who helped end Malone’s streak of 575 consecutive games of scoring in double figures. He finished with seven points.

By not backing down to Malone’s toughman antics, Taylor upset the veteran forward, who was already complaining about the lack of fouls being called in his favor.

With the Jazz trailing at halftime, 52-32, Malone tried to fire up his teammates but instead he had his hands full with Taylor. On consecutive trips down the court, the players banged and pushed each other until Malone swung an elbow at Taylor’s head.

The two got into a shoving match before being separated with Malone being ejected with his second technical.

“I never had a problem with Karl. . . . He’s where I want to be,” Taylor said. “He usually talks trash during the game, but . . . he’s not going to punk me.

“He hit me in the first half with an elbow. . . . Then he hit me again [in the second half] and I knew it was blatant. That was it. I don’t know who he thinks he is. He’s a good player, but that was a punk move.”

If the two hadn’t been separated, Taylor said he would have beat down the Utah veteran.

“No doubt,” Taylor said. “I told him on the court that I thought he was better than that. I thought he was more professional than that. Everyone takes losses. Everyone has frustrating losses; trust me, I know. But for him to try to take it out on somebody else. . . . From now on, I’m going to keep my guard up.”

The Clippers, who are 3-1 against the Jazz at the Pond, outrebounded Utah, 44-36, and held the Jazz to 39.4% shooting.

They even had the rare opportunity of being the leading team in a blowout late in a game, making one highlight play after another.

Whether it was Troy Hudson, playing his third game on a 10-day contract, making an alley-oop pass that was dunked home by Nesby, who beat teammate Murray to the ball, or Taylor taking three Utah players to the basket for a layup, the Clippers enjoyed themselves.

“It’s nice to see because people have asked me before about [the team’s] attitude,” Clipper Coach Chris Ford said. “They’ve continued to work hard every day in practice . . . but unfortunately we haven’t been able to put together some finishes to put us over the top.”

They did Saturday night.