This Clipper Victory Is a Fowlkes Tale

Twenty games into the season, the Clippers are still a chore to figure out. What comes next is anyone’s guess, but it probably won’t be dull. After all, who could have predicted what happened Saturday afternoon at Staples Center?

Power forward Elton Brand went for a season-best 26 points and had 17 rebounds, five assists and three blocks in 46 minutes against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That part was fairly predictable.

At the end, all anyone in Clipperdom could talk about was the job seldom-used forward Tremaine Fowlkes did against Kevin Garnett, who took only 13 shots while scoring 19 points. Without Fowlkes, the Clippers would have been lost. With him, they seized a 104-88 victory from Garnett and the Timberwolves before a crowd of 16,666.

The Clippers made it look easy. There were no signs of the fumbles and stumbles of recent weeks. They took a double-digit lead late and held it.

In winning their second in a row before starting a trip to New Orleans, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston, the Clippers actually resembled the polished and poised team so many expected them to be by now.

“Good win,” Coach Alvin Gentry said before reconsidering his opinion of the Clippers’ eighth victory in 20 games. “Great win.... Elton had great numbers today, but Tremaine, with the defense he played, I thought he played about as well as you can possibly play Kevin Garnett.”

Even with Fowlkes hounding him, Garnett scored 14 points and took 11 rebounds for the Timberwolves in the first half. The Clippers held a 52-51 lead, but it looked as if they were in for a long afternoon against one of the game’s most efficient players.

The 6-foot-8 Fowlkes had been buried on Gentry’s bench for the better part of the season, and seemed an odd choice to play against Garnett.

Until Saturday, Fowlkes had played in five games, averaged 1.6 points and 1.6 rebounds in 7.8 minutes. He sat out Wednesday’s victory over the Miami Heat after coming off the injured list to take the roster spot of Michael Olowokandi, who has tendinitis in his left knee.

Then Fowlkes dropped a career-best 15 points on six-for-11 shooting in 28 minutes on the Timberwolves.

Best of all, according to Gentry, was the defensive job Fowlkes did on Garnett in the second half. After halftime, Fowlkes limited Garnett to five points on two-for-five shooting and three rebounds. The Clippers certainly could live with Garnett’s scoring 19 points and taking 14 rebounds in 38 minutes by game’s end.

“My assignment was to put pressure on Kevin Garnett, who’s a proven All-Star,” Fowlkes said. “I just want to fill in because we still have a lot of guys injured, and I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity until those guys get healthy.”

Gentry would have played Lamar Odom against Garnett, but Odom remains sidelined by a sprained right ankle that could keep him out until Christmas. Gentry thought about playing rookie guard Marko Jaric against Garnett but saved Jaric for those moments when the Clippers went to a zone defense.

Jaric scored 14 points in 25 minutes.

Andre Miller, playing on a sprained left ankle, had 10 points and nine assists, including a 60-foot lob pass to a streaking Fowlkes for a dunk and a 78-67 lead with 3:20 left in the third quarter.

Eric Piatkowski scored 19 points, giving the Clippers five players with 10 points or more and enabling them to overcome what little else the Timberwolves might have mustered beyond Garnett’s rim-level play.

“I think we’re turning a corner,” Brand said. “We’re learning how to win these games. We’re playing together, passing well and scoring.”