Maggette Is Playing Hurt

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Corey Maggette started for the fifth consecutive game at small forward Friday against the New Jersey Nets. The Clippers have tried to get him out of the lineup and into an operating room for arthroscopic surgery on his right knee.

Maggette is determined to play as well as he can for as long as he can despite having damaged cartilage.

“That’s what they’re trying to do,” Maggette said of the Clippers’ attempts to persuade him to have surgery. He added that he won’t agree to have the procedure, “Until I say so.”

Hurt when he landed awkwardly during the Clippers’ Nov. 1 loss to the Lakers, Maggette had an MRI exam Monday that revealed torn lateral meniscus cartilage. It’s the same injury for which power forward Elton Brand had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee Sept. 26.

Brand sat out almost all of training camp.

“I know it’s messed up,” Maggette said before scoring 12 points in 32 minutes during the Clippers’ 106-92 loss to the Nets. “I’ll keep playing until ... I decide I need [surgery].

“I don’t want to be stupid about it even though I’m the Bionic Man,” he added. “I’m trying to help my team win.”

Maggette acknowledged he probably would consider having surgery now if small forward Lamar Odom were fit to play. Odom is on the injured list because of a sprained right ankle and isn’t expected back until after Christmas.

*

Quentin Richardson scored six points in 13 minutes playing on a hyperextended right knee. He also suffered a cut on his left eyelid midway through the second quarter.... The Clippers and Channel 5 announced the station has dropped games Nov. 24 against Houston and Dec. 1 against Indiana and replaced them with games Nov. 29 against Sacramento and Dec. 21 against Denver.