Kobe Bryant saw the replay of the hard low blow Serge Ibaka of Oklahoma City levied on the Los Angeles Clippers’ Blake Griffin and knew right away what he would have done if he were on the receiving end.
“I probably would have smacked [Ibaka] in the mouth,” the Lakers’ Bryant said. “I would have dealt with the pain after.”
More than likely, Bryant will not face Ibaka Tuesday night in OKC, as the NBA almost certainly will suspend the power forward for one game for the below-the-belt blow. Ibaka was assessed a technical foul for the act but was not ejected in the Thunders’ 108-104 win over the Clippers.
Without Ibaka, it stands to reason the Lakers have a better chance of upsetting Oklahoma City.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said. “They’re deep. It won’t change what we do, more or less. Obviously it would help us (if Ibaka was suspended) because he’s a good player. But we won’t change anything up.”
Dwight Howard cracked that if Ibaka somehow was not suspended, “”I mean, you got to wear a cup.”
Ibaka or not, the Lakers, only 1 1/2 games behind Utah for the eighth Western Conference playoff spot, the Lakers have to “Dictate the tempo of the game,” Howard said. “I think if we slow the ball down and we play the way we want to play, we should win the game. They want to get out and run. That’s not to our favor. We’re not a run-and-gun team, so I think the best way to play those guys is to slow the ball down and make them play in a half-court offense.”
The Thunder are an offensive juggernaut, while the Lakers have struggled against teams with winning records.
“I think we were kind of getting a groove a little bit before that game, and that game obviously was a big game for us to try to prove to ourselves that we can play with them and try to get out of this funk,” Bryant said.
“We got to try to take away the easy ones as much as possible,” he added. “That’s when scorers really have big nights, when they have dunks at the rim and they get layups and easy buckets. That’s when they really have those 30-35 point nights.”
