Running Counts for Brand

Whatever else has gone wrong with the Clippers this season -- and plenty has during their plunge to the bottom of the Pacific Division -- they can almost always count on power forward Elton Brand to lead them in points and rebounds.

“The only times he’s struggled are when teams try to totally take him out of his game,” Coach Alvin Gentry said of Brand, averaging 18.4 points and 11.2 rebounds before Saturday’s game.

Since that has been happening more often, particularly since the Clippers slid into last place, Gentry offered Brand a solution: run.

“I’ve told him that he should try to look at Karl Malone’s game and get out and run,” Gentry said. “If you do run, the game becomes so much easier. What’s made Karl Malone such an effective scorer is that he’s gotten so many easy baskets in his career.... When you get four or five easy baskets on the break, it makes it a lot easier to get 20 points every night.”

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Guard Quentin Richardson on the illness that kept him from playing Wednesday against the Milwaukee Bucks: “I was a little sick, but when I got here [for the game], I was real messed up.”

The team called Richardson’s illness a common cold. He was fit to start Saturday against Atlanta.

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-- Elliott Teaford