Clippers’ 117-105 Loss Has an Extra Meaning: It’s Hornets’ First Win

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —  At the end, the fans, who were supposed to be too college-conscious to support pro basketball, were standing and roaring in tribute. The players, who were supposed to be too--well, too expansion, celebrated right along with them.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever joined the crowd in chanting, ‘Beat L.A.,’ ” said former Laker Kurt Rambis.

Tuesday night, the Charlotte Hornets had their first victory, just three games into their first season in the National Basketball Assn.

Their first victims found no indignity in it, so let it be recorded for official and trivia purposes: Hornets 117, Clippers 105.

“We played good the last game,” guard Quintin Dailey said, referring to the Clippers’ victory Saturday at Miami, “but not good enough to act like we won the national championship.”

He meant NBA championship. Or did he?

“Some of the guys have got to stop thinking this is college,” said Dailey, who came off the bench to score a team-high 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field. “We start celebrating after one day and then get . . . the next.

“Maybe we got kind of cocky after we won the first one. I didn’t think we were ready for this game mentally.”

Before a raucous crowd of 18,865 at the Charlotte Coliseum, the Clippers (1-2) showed that much from the start. They never led after the earliest stages of the game, trailed by as many as 11 points in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth and never seemed to find a groove.

The Hornets, on the other hand, got the job done from all directions. Rex Chapman, the rookie guard who many thought went too high in the draft as the No. 8 pick, scored 18 points off the bench.

Tyrone (Muggsy) Bogues, the 5-foot 3-inch second-year guard who is supposed to be too small to play in the NBA, hit his jump shots and drove the lane with authority en route to 14 points and 4 rebounds. Also, his ballhandling made the Clippers’ trapping defense a misnomer.

“You just give Muggsy the ball and sit back with your hands behind your head and watch him work,” said Charlotte forward Kelly Tripucka, who had a game-high 24 points. “He plays like he’s the Starship Enterprise. He goes where no man has gone before.”

At this rate, though, a lot of teams will be taking the Clipper defense to the cleaners.

“I think we have an awful lot to learn defensively,” Clipper Coach Gene Shue said after his team yielded 117 points to an opponent that had scored 93 and 85 points points in its first two games. “We’ve been up and we’ve been down. But we certainly haven’t been consistent.

“I really haven’t liked this team. We won at Miami, and then we’re not solid. We had a really poor workout yesterday, and that carried over to the game.”

The crowd wasn’t supposed to be here, either. This is Atlantic Coast Conference territory, after all, and fans were supposed to be too consumed with Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Clemson, South Carolina and North Carolina Charlotte--all within a 150-mile radius--to have time for the NBA.

But there they were, lustily cheering at every opportunity. On opening night Friday, 23,338 turned out to watch the stepchildren of area basketball.

“It’s a great win for us and a great win for Charlotte as a whole,” said Tripucka, who looked into the crowd late in the game and gave a double thumbs-up sign to the family of Felix Sabates, one of the team’s owners.

“We got the franchise and then we got the first game and our first basket and all that. Now we’ve got the first win. I just don’t think anybody thought we would get it so soon.”

Clipper Notes

George Shinn, 47, the Hornets’ majority owner and president, suffered a mild stroke Tuesday afternoon but was resting comfortably at Charlotte Memorial Hospital and was out of danger, the team announced. Doctors said that Shinn suffered a small hemorrhage above his right eye and that tests will be performed to determine whether there is any permanent damage. . . . Kurt Rambis scored 17 points (7 of 9 from the field) and had 14 rebounds. In the latter category, he trailed only Clipper Ken Norman, who had 15 for the third consecutive game. . . . Clipper reserve forwards Joe Wolf and Dave Popson, both North Carolina graduates, received ovations when the teams were introduced.

The Clippers’ 20-point victory Saturday over Miami, 111-91, represented their largest margin of victory since Jan. 10, 1986, when they beat Utah by 34 points, 131-97. The Clippers shot 61.6% from the field against the Heat, their best mark since they shot 62.4% against Denver on Jan. 15, 1987. . . . The Hornets will have to make a roster move when guard Ralph Lewis comes off the injured list next week, and one of the options for Coach Dick Harter and General Manager Carl Scheer is to cut forward Tom Tolbert, the rookie from the University of Arizona, Cerritos College and Artesia High School.