They’ll Try to Forget About Loss to Lakers

Round 1 in the battle for Staples Center supremacy is over, the Lakers having emerged as the clear-cut winners Wednesday night.

The Clippers would just as soon forget about it. They went into the game with the NBA’s second-best shooting percentage. They ranked fifth in the league in shooting defense, a marked improvement from last season.

But that was before they made a season-low 41.3% of their shots against the Lakers, who made a Clipper-opponent high of 51.3%.

And everybody went home wondering what else was new.

“It’s not about taking over L.A.,” Clipper center Chris Wilcox said on his way out the door. “It’s about winning games, and that’s what we wanted to do, just come out and win this game. This was a big game for us.

“But even if we would have won, they still would have been [saying], ‘Oh, it was luck. The Clippers were lucky.’ But we came out and we played hard.”

Unlike the Lakers, the Clippers had also played Tuesday.

“We can’t say it was that because every night is just about going out and playing hard,” Wilcox said. “We can’t say, ‘Oh, we played last night; we came in without the energy.’ We can’t say that. We can’t make excuses for ourselves.”

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Coach Mike Dunleavy said last week that he wasn’t sure if the Clippers were ready yet to “play with the big boys.”

Their 103-89 loss to the Lakers was their first game against a team that reached the Western Conference playoffs last season. They are 1-2 against teams that made the Eastern Conference playoffs, including a 34-point victory over the Indiana Pacers and a double-overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons.

Last season, they were 12-36 against teams that made the playoffs, 6-26 against the Western Conference elite, including an 0-4 record against the Houston Rockets, whom they play Saturday at Staples Center.

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Kerry Kittles, a seven-year starter for the New Jersey Nets who twice in the last three years helped the Nets reach the NBA Finals, is not listed among the 24 Western Conference guards on the All-Star ballot that was unveiled Thursday. Three Clippers made the ballot: Elton Brand, Corey Maggette and Chris Kaman.

The Clippers, off Thursday, were scheduled to practice today at their new headquarters in an El Segundo health club, but the floor was not ready. They’ll practice instead at Staples Center.