LOS ANGELES — Stanford arrived late and finished early against Southern California.

Stuck in L.A. traffic, the Cardinal’s team bus pulled into the new Galen Center just 40 minutes before the opening tip. Once on the court, Stanford failed to play a full 40 minutes, with key breakdowns handing USC the 69-65 victory last night.

“It sucks,” senior forward Fred Washington said. “It always sucks to lose.”

Down 62-52 with 4:30 to play, scores from Washington, sophomore forward Lawrence Hill and freshman center Brook Lopez cut the Cardinal’s deficit to just 63-59 with 2:39 left.

But then, at the most critical of moments, Stanford choked.

First, the Cardinal drained the Trojans’ shot clock to one with 1:11 to go, only for Nick Young to draw a last-second foul on Washington off an in-bounds pass. Washington, who went down holding his knee but returned to the game moments later, thought Young pulled an acting job worthy of Denzel Washington, who watched the game from the front row.

“It was a veteran move on his part,” Washington said. “He grabbed my arm, was like ‘Ahh!’ and fell down.”

Young missed the front end of his one-and-one, but USC controlled the offensive rebound and drew a second foul. Lodrick Stewart then missed the front end of his one-and-one — only for the Trojans to grab a third straight rebound and have Stewart draw yet another foul. He hit a free throw to put his team ahead, 64-59, with a minute left, and Stanford’s last-gasp rally fell short.

“We can’t get pushed under on free throws — we’re bigger and stronger than everybody else,” Washington said. “And we can’t just let the twins [freshmen Brook and Robin Lopez] get the rebound. The guys on the outside got to work for it too. We can’t just watch it sail across.”

USC’s trio of guards — Young, Stewart and Gabe Pruitt — proved the difference on the evening, combining for 55 of the Trojans’ 69 points on 20-of-41 shooting. With the victory, USC (20-8, 10-5 Pacific-10 Conference) claimed sole possession of third place in the conference, dropping Stanford (17-9, 9-6) to fourth.

“Our one-on-one D, I felt like everyone didn’t play like they could have,” Washington said. “Either we’d play the drive too hard and they’d step back with a jump shot, or we’d fall asleep, get hit with a screen and not fight through.”

To be sure, the Cardinal had its moments. For the second straight game, Brook Lopez and Hill topped 20 points, with 23 and 21 respectively. But in another flashback to Saturday, Robin Lopez got whistled for an early technical foul — this time for horse-collaring an opponent. Stanford held its last lead of the game at 6-5, and made it obvious soon after that its A-game never left the Maples parking lot.

“We never really felt like we were in it,” Brook Lopez said. “Our intensity wasn’t there at the defensive end.”

The Cardinal has now lost three straight road games, as it was swept in by the Washington schools two weeks ago.

“The fact that we didn’t [defend and rebound] shows we haven’t got over the hump yet of last road trip,” Hill said.

Stanford did out-rebound USC 42-27 overall and 18-8 on the offensive glass, and improved its field-goal defense from 56 percent in the first half to 41 percent in the second. Still, head coach Trent Johnson wasn’t fooled by the numbers.

“We didn’t rebound the ball at crucial times in the second half when we got stops,” he said. “In the first half, we didn’t get out to shooters, Nick and Pruitt, at crucial times.”

The Cardinal now travels across the city to face No. 4 UCLA (24-3, 13-2) at 3 p.m. tomorrow. After a slow start yesterday, the Bruins exploded in the second half to decimate Cal, 85-75.

“It’s just a big game,” Brook Lopez said. “UCLA, then Arizona, then Arizona State, who beat USC. So, we’ve got a lot of tough games coming up.”