There’s No Use Complaining

The season is less than a week old and the Clippers have already taken on an “us against them” attitude.

“Our backs are going to be against the wall the whole season,” forward Lamar Odom said before Thursday night’s game against Vancouver at Staples Center. “We’re just going to have to come out fighting every game.”

The Clippers discovered in their season-opening loss at Utah that complaining to officials does not help. The team received five technical fouls, too many for Coach Alvin Gentry.

“I’ll like for us to not get any technical fouls. . . . I’ll get enough for everybody,” Gentry said. “I’d like for them not to talk to the referees. . . . I don’t want them to question calls. I want them to just play.”

Center Michael Olowokandi has had a problem with officials since he was drafted No. 1 overall in 1998. Olowokandi said he realizes that he has to change his approach.

“I’m going to have to be extra careful about calls. I can’t afford to be involved in 50-50 situations where the call can go either way,” he said.

“I can just have my hand on the ball and fight for it with another guy, and I’ll get called for the foul. That’s frustrating. It takes one’s aggression away. I just have to play hard and smart.”

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Because of the Clippers’ lack of experience, Gentry said his team has to watch plenty of tape.

“We’re starting to watch a lot of tape . . . but we put an edit together,” Gentry said. “We show certain situations and certain things other teams do rather than watch two hours of tape. With technology now, we can pull off certain things and show them what needs to be shown in an eight-minute tape.

“But it’s really important for us to understand what we are trying to do, and that’s one of the things that has come from my association with Larry Brown.”

Gentry was an assistant to Brown at San Antonio from 1988 to 1990.

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In 1998, the Clippers picked Olowokandi over Mike Bibby with the first pick of the draft, and it is still up in the air if the team made the right choice.

Although Olowokandi has not yet distinguished himself as a dominant NBA center, he has been reliable in starting 115 of 127 games for the Clippers.

However, when the Clippers passed on Bibby, they had a void at point guard, and since 1998, the team has used Darrick Martin, Pooh Richardson, Sherman Douglas, Charles Smith, Troy Hudson, Eric Murdock, Charles Jones and now Jeff McInnis, Lamar Odom and Keyon Dooling at the position.

Vancouver ended up with Bibby, who has started every NBA game he has played in and led the team in assists the last two seasons.