OAKLAND, Calif., April 15 (UPI) -- Lamar Odom hit a key three-pointer Monday night as the Los Angeles Clippers held off Golden State Warriors, 122-113, in a fight-marred NBA contest.
Elton Brand scored 26 points and tied a career high with 23 rebounds, and Eric Piatkowski added a season-high 27 points for Los Angeles, which capped a 2-3 road trip and earned a split of the season series.
"Elton goes about his job in a workmanlike fashion," said Clippers Coach Dennis Johnson. "He doesn't look great doing it, but at the end of the day, you're always gonna get numbers like that, and that's 26 and 23. He may get 26 and 12 or 26 and 17 in between there, but Elton plays."
"We couldn't do anything with Elton Brand," said Warriors guard Gilbert Arenas, who scored 13 points on just 3-of-15 shooting. "He was doing everything he can out there, and we just had to stop everybody else and just try to contain him."
The Clippers held a 103-90 advantage after a jumper and free throw by Keyon Dooling with 9:43 to play, but the Warriors stormed back, climbing within 115-113 on a three-pointer by Jason Richardson with 2:05 remaining.
Odom, who made just three of his first 12 attempts, then silenced the crowd at The Arena with his shot from just to the right of the top of the arc with 1:46 left. The basket seemed to demoralize the Warriors, who were blanked thereafter.
"It was a big bucket at that time and the game had a minute left," Odom said. "I was getting to the hole fairly easy, but I wasn't able to finish. I wanted to make a play from the outside. I got my feet behind the line and just took the shot."
The Clippers were leading, 81-65, when Sean Rooks and Warriors forward Troy Murphy got in each other's face after battling for a rebound with 6:26 left in the third quarter. Rooks put Murphy in a headlock before both players were separated and ejected.
The altercation fired up the Warriors, who got within 92-90 with 1:22 left before the Clippers scored the final seven points of the period and first four of the fourth quarter.
"The fight got us going a bit and really got the crowd into the game," Richardson said. "We didn't want to go down like that. We wanted to battle, so that definitely lit a fire under us."
"I think we definitely played with more emotion after the incident in the third quarter," said Warriors Coach Eric Musselman. "We shouldn't need something like that to get us fired up, but the team turned it up a notch after that."
Richardson scored 29 points and Antawn Jamison had 26 for Golden State, which had won 10 of its previous 13 home games.
