400th Victory Is Next for Dunleavy

In their Staples Center opener tonight against the Atlanta Hawks, the Clippers are positioned to deliver Mike Dunleavy his 400th NBA coaching victory.

“Is that right?” he said Monday. “I wouldn’t have known that.”

Dunleavy, 1-2 in his first season with the Clippers, is 399-392 in a career that has included stops with the Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks and Portland Trail Blazers. He was 101-63 in two seasons with the Lakers, 107-221 in four seasons with the Bucks and 190-106 in four seasons with the Trail Blazers.

“It says you’ve been around for a while,” Dunleavy said of the milestone. “Hopefully, we get it. Not from my standpoint, but just because we want to win, we want to get ourselves to .500.”

If the Clippers win, Dunleavy will be the 30th coach in NBA history with at least 400 victories, far behind the all-time leader, Lenny Wilkens, whose teams won 1,292 games.

He will be the sixth active coach to reach the milestone, joining Don Nelson of the Dallas Mavericks, Larry Brown of the Detroit Pistons, Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz, Phil Jackson of the Lakers and Rick Adelman of the Sacramento Kings.

Brown, second behind Nelson among active coaches with 884 victories, picked up No. 400 while coaching the Clippers during the 1992-93 season.

“If you’re looking at it just from the standpoint of wins ... you’d always just wait for the best opportunity, the best situation to win,” said Dunleavy, who took the Lakers to the NBA Finals in 1991 and twice took the Trail Blazers to the Western Conference finals. “But I like the part of teaching equally well.

“I’d like to have a team that has a chance to win a championship, but the next-best thing is finding a group of guys that you have a chance to bring along and make strides with and finally get to the next level. That’s very rewarding also.

“I’ve had four teams and two of them [the Lakers and Trail Blazers] were expected to win and they won. This is the second one where you start out and you’re not winning and you’re trying to build something.”

TONIGHT

vs. Atlanta, 7:30, Fox Sports Net 2

Site -- Staples Center.

Radio -- KXTA (690/1150).

Records -- Clippers 1-2, Hawks 2-5.

Record vs. Hawks -- (2002-03) 0-2.

Update -- A victory in their Staples Center opener would put the Clippers at .500, a level they never reached last season. Jason Terry averages 19.7 points, Stephen Jackson 16.1 points and Shareef Abdur-Rahim 14.9 points and 10.4 rebounds for the Hawks, who were 0-4 on the road before Sunday’s 91-81 victory at Seattle.

Tickets -- (800) 462-2849.