LOS ANGELES — As the saying goes, reality bites. So the Clippers are trying to bend it to their own purposes.
Facing an extremely unlikely parlay to reach the playoffs — they have to beat New Orleans (doable) while Golden State loses to Portland (unlikely) — someone in management has made the decision to keep the Golden State game off the out of town scoreboards. You can track every other NBA, NHL and baseball game, but not the one most people in the stands are looking for. (The in-arena wi-fi also happens to be down, eliminating another way of checking scores, but that might just be coincidence.)
Anyway, at halftime here, whether anyone knows it or not, the reality is that the Clippers are just about dead. Golden State lead 64-46 at halftime, so the Clippers’ 44-42 lead at the half doesn’t mean much.
There’s also a little bending of reality going on in the Clippers’ reaction to the way Dallas took a dive last night against Golden State, holding just about everything but Mark Cuban’s ego out of action in a 111-82 loss.
The Clippers’ spin, as represented by Mike Dunleavy before the game, is that this represented Dallas’ preference for playing the Warriors instead of the Clippers.
“I mean, they clearly had a choice, and they made it,� Dunleavy said. “They made it in a big way. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind when they came out and the guys who were sitting on the sidelines dressed with suits, when you looked at them.� (Dirk Nowitzki, Jerry Stackhouse and Josh Howard sat out; starters Jason Terry and Devin Harris came off the bench.)
“Yesterday,� Dunleavy continued, “I heard from someone close to the (Dallas) organization, saying, ‘They don’t want to play you guys.’ �
A more likely scenario, though, is that they really felt the choice was between the Warriors and Lakers, and were doing everything they could to lift Golden State into the seventh spot and a matchup with Phoenix. (That could happen if the Lakers lose at Sacramento tonight.)
It’s probably understandable the Clippers didn’t want to look at the Dallas decision and see that they were considered irrelevant by the Mavericks.
The reality, though, is that they’re about to become irrelevant by anyone’s standards.