The Pond Is Questionable Playoff Option

If the Clippers make the playoffs, would Coach Bill Fitch like to have a playoff game at the Pond of Anaheim?

“I don’t think I have any pull,” Fitch said. “I don’t even know where that stands in terms of the league.”

The Clippers, who played the Orlando Magic at the Pond Thursday night, won three of their first four games at the Pond, including victories over the Lakers and Seattle SuperSonics.

“It’s a great place to play,” Fitch said. “You can’t compare this building to [the Sports Arena], but the fact remains that that’s home. This is like our home away from home and we’ve been treated very good down here. It’s a shame that it doesn’t house us 41 games.”

Clipper owner Donald T. Sterling rejected a lucrative offer to move to the Pond last May.

“He’s a die-hard L.A. guy,” Fitch said of Sterling, who moved the Clippers to the Sports Arena in 1984. “He’s literally put his money where his mouth is. It’s costing [Sterling] money, I’m sure, to stay up there.

“There’s not many guys like that. In a way, you’ve got to give him credit.”

If the Clippers had a playoff game at the Pond, where they play six regular-season games, they’d probably have to get approval from the NBA office and they’d have to schedule it around the Mighty Ducks’ games.

The Clippers moved a 1992 playoff game against the Utah Jazz from the Sports Arena to the Anaheim Convention Center because of the riots.

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Clipper guard Malik Sealy, who missed nine of 13 shots in Tuesday’s loss to the Houston Rockets, has shot 33% in his last two games.

Sealy wasn’t looking forward to playing the Magic at the Pond on Thursday.

“I think it’s the crooked rims [at the Pond],” Sealy quipped.