Winning Is Especially Nice for Clippers : Pro basketball: They beat the Jazz, 107-100, for their first victory over a playoff team since Feb. 14.

Coach Larry Brown, among others in the Clipper organization, might say that any victory would have been nice, but don’t believe him.

That the Clippers beat a good team Saturday night made it better. And that they did it in a close game made it better still.

“We really, really needed this game,� Gary Grant said after the Clippers beat the Utah Jazz, 107-100, before 15,989 at the Sports Arena.

“If we would have lost this game here, everyone would have been really down. It shows that if we play team defense and move the ball, we still can play real well. Everyone should go homeand get a copy of this game on tape.�

Grant had 10 assists for the second game in a row. Stanley Roberts had 20 points, eight rebounds and five blocked shots and Ken Norman had 10 points and 13 rebounds. The Clippers shot52.6%.

But no statistic means more to the Clippers than this: By beating Utah for the second time in a season for the first time since 1986-87, they also beat a playoff team for the first time since Portland on Feb. 14. The six victories since then have come against Washington (twice), Sacramento, Golden State and Minnesota (twice).

The Clippers never trailed after taking a 90-88 lead on Danny Manning’s rebound tip with 7:43 remaining, traded baskets, then started to pull away three minutes later. With some unexpected developments, that culminated with a 9-0 run for a 101-92 lead.

That was part of a stretch during which the Jazz failed to score on nine of 11 possessions,normally trustworthy John Stockton missing a layup and then throwing a pass away within three trips.

Both teams came in searching for their strides, and doing something to find it.

The Jazz had won three of five since shaking up the starting lineup--replacing Jeff Malone with Jay Humphries at shooting guard and Tyrone Corbin with David Benoit at small forward--and the losses were to Seattle and Houston. That has provided a spark, but the larger problem remains: Utah is 5 1/2 games behind the Rockets for the Midwest Division lead and 4 1/2 behind San Antonio for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and had already lost the season series, the tiebreaker, to both.

“I just worry about us playing well,� Coach Jerry Sloan said, dismissing the notion of the standings serving as motivation. “You’ve got to get some momentum to get on top of your game. You look that far ahead, it could be too far to look. It’s like when people start looking for the world championship before the season starts. You’ve got to play the first game.�

The Clippers’ problems were not so much in the standings--they are 5 1/2 games ahead of struggling Golden State for the eighth and final playoff spot--as on the court. Their response was a slight change in strategy designed to improve the defense, coming, fittingly, a game after giving up 133 points to Miami.

Seeking fewer possessions for the opposition, Coach Larry Brown called for the offense to slow the pace.

“If you shorten the game, you don’t have to guard as much,� Brown said. “I still want to run (after) rebounds and turnovers and the like, but we have to address our weaknesses.�

This was a good place to start, or at least a reprieve for the Clipper defense in that regard, because the Jazz doesn’t depend upon the transition game for scoring.

Utah had a 49-45 lead at halftime, then pushed it to 60-49 2 1/2 minutes into the third quarter. But the Clippers, with a 12-3 run, all but caught up, getting within 68-67.

Their deficit was four heading into the fourth quarter, 80-76.