It really was fun while it lasted for the Clippers - Los Angeles Times

I'm sitting here watching a game the Clippers have no chance of winning and it's still a hoot.

Who gets up for a game when already down three games to none to the Spurs and losing the last one after being up by 24?

The Clippers should be deflated, but they are winning, 75-74, after three quarters. Their playoff run is over, and yet they don't seem to know it.

Inspired effort is what fans have been getting from the Clippers all season long, and right now there are 19,000 fans on their feet. They had to come here knowing this was doomsday.

Yet everyone in Lob City is wearing red again, the place alive with noise and so this is what it's like to have fun at a basketball game.

You forget that when you're a Lakers fan.

Winning is the only thing that is fun. Winning championships, as we're repeatedly reminded, is the only thing that counts.

But who had a better time this season, Clippers or Lakers fans?

How does anyone root for the Lakers? I understand history, tradition and all those trophies, but right now how does anyone invest everything they have in these players?

What is it like to expend so much energy loving the Lakers and getting Andrew Bynum in return? Do you think that for one second of his life he gives a rip about any of you?

The Clippers are not the Lakers, and probably never will be as long as most of us live.

But name the last time fun and Lakers were mentioned in the same sentence? Anything but winning seems to result in anger, fans wanting Coach Mike Brown fired and the players now pointing fingers at each other.

Chris Paul is every bit as competitive as Kobe Bryant. But I can't imagine Paul throwing blame Blake Griffin's way as Bryant has done with Pau Gasol.

If Griffin turned the ball over, somehow got it back and missed the shot, or stepped out of bounds or forgot to shoot and the clock ran out, Paul would say it was all his fault.

But when Gasol made an errant pass, according to Plaschke's online column, Bryant told reporters: "It was a bad read. It was a bad read on Pau's part.''

A kid does that in high school and he gets reprimanded by his coach, his parents and his teammates for singling out a teammate.

Yet Bryant goes on. "Pau has to be more assertive; he's got to be more aggressive. He's looking to swing the ball too much. He just has to shoot it."

All that's true, and add in the frustration that comes with cheering for Gasol while he whines about every foul called and plays so soft at times.

But after a stinging defeat, to get stung again by a teammate -- and a teammate of Bryant's caliber -- is too much.