Forty years of playing cranks on screen has given Ed O’Neill a particular understanding for Sterling’s quirks, gripes and foibles that few others in his field can claim. Laurence Fishburne serves up a reminder of his Olivier-like range, down to the raspy voice of Doc Rivers, the Black coach who bucks up to Sterling. Double Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver delivers yet another powerhouse performance as Shelly Sterling. .... Where Coleman is truly on her game is when she’s digging into the more closely guarded textures of Stiviano’s personality

“Clipped” is flashy, maybe even a little messy to begin with. But if you let its soapy saga wash over you, you’ll realize that cleaning one apple at a time is no way to address a barrel filled with toxic sludge.

In a rare victory for the Clippers over the Lakers, “Clipped” is the second recent drama series devoted to one of Los Angeles’ NBA teams but also the superior one, chronicling the spectacular fall of owner Donald Sterling. Rotating among four principal players, with Ed O’Neill as Sterling, it’s an all-star lineup covering a story filled with the kind of outlandish characters that require little embellishment.

Clipped is a slick, well-acted dramatization that inserts moments of soul searching into the tale of headline-grabbing scandal.

The crackling interplay between these key players provides Clipped with its foundation, and it always knows just who to call off the bench when the energy threatens to dip or the tempo needs to change.

Welch has a lot on her mind but not all of it coheres. The show is strongest when it’s less focused on Stiviano’s grasping desire for fame or recreating her awkward interview with Barbara Walters (in which she clunkily described herself as Sterling’s “right hand arm man”) and more interested in longstanding issues of racism in the NBA and the tense debates Sterling’s bigotry provoked for Rivers and the players.

Despite some good performances, particularly by Laurence Fishburne as Doc Rivers, and some isolated scenes, it doesn’t offer up nearly enough that’s new to merit the dramatization. .... The storytelling itself is mostly lacking. It’s six largely by-the-numbers hours.