Fitch Scoffs At Milestone Win
The only way Bill Fitch has gotten any attention during his 24 seasons as an NBA coach is by doing something out of the ordinary.
Such as losing 1,000 games. Or losing his first 16 games with the Los Angeles Clippers. Or undergoing triple bypass surgery last summer. Or winning a championship with Boston.
On Saturday night, it was his 900th victory. The Clippers beat the Sacramento Kings 106-94, but Fitch didn’t make much of it considering his team squandered all but two points of a 17-point third-period lead before hanging on.
“It’s not that big a deal,” said Fitch, who has coached more games than anyone in NBA history. “The most important thing about 900 wins is that I won them with some pretty good players, and some of those thousand I’ve lost with some players who weren’t too good.
“If you go back 20 years ago, I’m 200 games below .500 in Cleveland, or whatever. (Actually, it’s 130 games below .500). So when you make up your mind that you’re going to live through all this, you don’t get into how many you’ve lost and how many you’ve won.”
Fitch, 62, doesn’t go around looking for TV exposure. When he gets some, it generally finds him. He is indifferent to the limelight, which makes him a perfect fit for the Clippers.
This is his third season with the Clippers, a hard-working unit with a 9-14 record. They are a long, long way from Fitch’s title team, the 1980-81 Celtics.
“Fortunately, all my bad teams became good somewhere along the line, so we could enjoy it and at least have one victory party together,” Fitch said.
Rockets win without Barkley
With Charles Barkley out with a sprained ankle, Hakeem Olajuwon had 26 points Sunday as the Houston Rockets improved their NBA-best record (21-2) with a 99-89 win over the host Portland Trail Blazers.
Latrell Sprewell scored a career-high 43 points for the Golden State Warriors in a 110-102 loss to the visiting Washington Bullets.