LOS ANGELES The end came, officially, at 9:41 p.m. Wednesday.

It was at that moment, with 4:31 remaining in the Los Angeles Clippers' regular-season finale with New Orleans, that the Golden State Warriors completed a 120-98 win at Portland, clinching the final Western Conference playoff berth.

With that, the Clippers' eventual 86-83 loss became as irrelevant as a Tower Records gift card, though they tried to hide the fact.

The game was conspicuously absent from the Staples Center's out-of-town scoreboards. Apparently, someone felt the Clippers couldn't handle the truth, but afterward, they faced it manfully enough.

"You definitely don't want the season to be over now," said Elton Brand. "It really hurts. It really burns."

Said Tim Thomas, "When you look around the room at all the talent we have, not to get back into the playoffs is frustrating."

The real truth, of course, was that the fall from playoff grace wasn't about one night's results. It wasn't even about Sunday's embarrassing loss to Sacramento, though that one will stay with them for a while, since it took their playoff fate out of their own hands.

It was really about an entire season of setbacks, mishaps and underachievement, mostly illustrating how fragile the Clippers' rise to respectability really was, and how small the margin is between success and failure. The Clippers finish at 40-42, a fall of seven games from last year's record and a light-year away in terms of attitude and outlook.

Injuries, certainly, are a key reason. Last year the Clippers lost 122 man-games to injuries, but 100 of those were tied up in two players: Corey Maggette, who missed 50 games, and Zeljko Rebraca, something other than a key to the team's success.

This year, the total was 157 games, and while Rebraca (74 games) was again a big part of that figure, the problems were more widespread. Shaun Livingston missed 28 games, including the final 25 with a dislocated left knee, his third major injury in three NBA seasons. Chris Kaman, Tim Thomas and Maggette missed five or more, but most damaging, clearly, were various injuries sidelining Sam Cassell for 24 games. The Clippers lost 15 of those, and were 2-8 in games when Cassell was limited to 15 minutes or less.

"I had things I wanted to accomplish with this ballclub this season," said Cassell, "but injuries are part of the game. I understand how hard I've got to work this summer to get my body where it's supposed to be at so I won't have to step down next year."

Statistically, most of the players took a step back from a year ago. Kaman qualifies as the poster child in this regard; anyone who watched him on a regular basis will be surprised to learn his scoring average only dropped by 1.9 points (11.9 to 10.0) and his rebounds by 1.8 (9.6 to 7.8). He certainly seemed much less productive, and did little to affirm the wisdom of the five-year, $52.5 million contract he signed in October.

But the biggest statistical drop-offs are in the team stats, not the individual ones. Last year, the Clippers led in rebounds. This year they're 13th. They went from four to ninth in rebound differential, fourth to 10th in terms of lowest opposing-team field-goal percentage. The list goes on, but you get the idea: This team never approached the standards it set last year, even with a late surge over the season's final quarter.

To Dunleavy, that, too, started with the injuries, and they started at the very beginning.

"When you start out your training camp where the first day Sam is out, Tim (Thomas) is out, Aaron Williams is out, Rebraca, too all four of those guys missed all of training camp, totally," Dunleavy said.

"It seemed like things kind of snowballed for us. Every time it seemed like we started going in the right direction, something different would come up for us."

That something could have been injuries, the disruption of the training-camp trip to Russia, the distraction when Maggette asked for a trade, or a more elusive issue. Whatever the reason, the Clippers struggled more than they didn't.

Before Wednesday's game, Dunleavy repeatedly referred to the quality of the Clippers' play in their previous 18 games, how they'd played better defensively and shared the ball and how Sunday's loss to Sacramento was the only real misstep.

"Of course," he said, "we expected to be in the playoffs and be competing the way we've competed in the last 18."

But even with all of that, in those 18 games, the Clippers were just 10-8, and had a three-game losing streak, as well as win streaks of three and four games.

And so, even at its best, this was a team that wobbled. Ultimately it fell right out of the postseason.

There's a temptation to say these are the same old Clippers, but that's not true. The old Clippers expected failure. These expected success.

That it didn't come is what makes this season more disappointing than most, even if by the basic accounting of wins and losses, it's better than most of the previous two decades.

Contact Star columnist David Lassen at dlassen@VenturaCountyStar.com.