Larry Brown Sports

Leave it to the venom-spitting Black Mamba to put the Serge Ibaka-Blake Griffin incident into proper perspective.

When asked about Ibaka’s chop to Griffin’s groin Sunday during the Thunder-Clippers game, Bryant told reporters Monday how he would have reacted.

“I probably would have smacked him in the mouth,” Bryant said of Ibaka, via Mark Medina of the LA Daily News.

Kobe said he would have dealt with the pain of being hit in the groin afterwards.

Dwight Howard had a very different reaction, joking around like usual.

“You gotta wear a cup,” Howard said.

Typical Dwight.

If the NBA decides to suspend Ibaka, it could help the Lakers, who play at Oklahoma City on Tuesday.

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka received a flagrant-1 foul on Sunday when he hit Blake Griffin near the groin (video of the play here) during his team’s win over the Los Angeles Clippers. It is unclear whether Ibaka hit Griffin in the man region or not, but it certainly looked like the swing itself was intentional.

After the game, Ibaka insisted that he was not trying to hurt Griffin.

“He hit my hands away,” Ibaka told reporters, via The Oklahoman. “He’s strong, so when he grabs you, your jersey or whatever, and you try to defend yourself and rebound. So maybe you can do some move, not to hurt, (but) just to get good position, but then something happens where you get hurt in the paint. It’s not anything where I want to try to hurt him. I’m not that kind of person. I just try to play hard, and that’s it.

“I just tried to play hard. I really don’t care if someone is dirty or not, that’s not my problem. His game was intense. We all were complaining to the referees (about) some dirty stuff. It’s basketball. We just played. If you can see the replay, you can see he grabbed my jersey first so I wanted to try to defend myself, (but) not to hurt him.”

The two were certainly fighting for position and grabbing at one another while attempting to box out, but it looked like Ibaka took it too far. As we mentioned before, Griffin has become known for flopping so it’s hard to tell if he was really hurt as badly as it appeared.

“I guess it’s a chippy game like that every time we play,” Griffin said. “We’re both pretty physical teams with physical bigs. There was a lot of pushing and all that going on down low.”

The Thunder and Clippers could very well meet in the playoffs in a few months, so we could be in for plenty more post battles and flagrant fouls.

Serge Ibaka got away with what appeared to be a hit to Blake Griffin’s groin at the end of Oklahoma City’s 108-104 win over the Los Angeles Clippers Sunday.

The two were fighting under the basket for position as Matt Barnes’ 3-pointer from the corner went in with less than two minutes left in the game. As the ball was nearing the basket, Ibaka hit Griffin below the waist.

It’s unclear if Ibaka’s hand landed on Griffin’s thigh or nailed his Captain Winky, but Griffin hit the deck quickly. Griffin is known for flopping, so it’s difficult to base the severity of the chop on his reaction.

The play was reviewed and Ibaka received a flagrant-1 foul. Griffin made one of his two free throws.

Ibaka’s play was dirty and egregious, and he’s lucky to have escaped a flagrant-2 foul which would have resulted in an automatic ejection.

The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Philadelphia 76ers 107-90 Monday, which was the team’s largest margin of victory over the 76ers in franchise history. At one point, the game became somewhat of a dunking exhibition for the Clippers, which is nothing unusual for them.

Blake Griffin put together another spectacular dunk. The power forward switched hands and jammed on Philly center Spencer Hawes with his left hand during the third quarter. Griffin was fouled on the play and attempted a free throw which he missed, but center DeAndre Jordan power-jammed it home, giving the Clippers highlight-reel worthy dunks on back-to-back plays.

Griffin had 20 points, nine rebounds, and five assists in 28 minutes. Jordan had eight points and 10 rebounds in 24 minutes. Despite appearances, the Clippers did have one blunder. Jordan missed an alley-oop attempt in the second quarter:

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Blake Griffin has emerged as one of the more entertaining athletes off the court. Not only does he electrify with his amazing dunks, but the man has displayed an outstanding sense of humor both on Twitter and in commercials. He also isn’t bad at impressions.

After the Los Angeles Clippers’ 86-76 win over the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, Griffin apparently was doing his Harry Caray impersonation.

Grayson Gregory of 810 CBS Sports Radio in Orlando says he heard Griffin talking to teammate Lamar Odom like Caray after the game, so he asked the forward to describe Ryan Hollins’ performance while doing the Caray voice. The result was the video you see above.

Hollins had 13 points and 8 rebounds in 24 minutes off the bench. Griffin didn’t play because of a hamstring injury, which gave him plenty of time to do his Caray.

Griffin’s impression was definitely solid, but it’s not quite as good as Ryan Dempster’s.

The Los Angeles Clippers had a number of poorly-executed offensive sets during their 115-94 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night, but one of those sets was particularly embarrassing for Blake Griffin. With the Clippers trailing by 12 late in the third quarter, Griffin somehow wound up with the ball in his hands deep in the corner and just over 1 second on the shot clock. Uh oh.

As you can see, Griffin hit the side of the backboard on a three-point attempt. It was the 11th three-pointer he has attempted this season, only two of which he has knocked down. For his career, Griffin is 11-of-51 from beyond the arc. This amused the Warriors’ bench, who made the most of the rare opportunity to clown on Griffin for the horrible shot.

When your highlight reel consists of monster dunks like this and this, you’re typically the one doing most of the laughing. Having opponents point and laugh at him was probably unfamiliar for The Blake Show.

Blake Griffin and Chris Paul closed out an exciting day of Christmas hoops on Tuesday the only way the NBA’s biggest superstars should — by wearing awesomely ugly Christmas sweaters. As you can see from the photo above that Dan Woike of the Orange County Register shared with us, CP3 and Griffin made it impossible to choose who was wearing the bigger eye sore.

The L.A. Clippers defeated the Denver Nuggets, 112-100, so Paul and Griffin were probably feeling extra comfy in their festive threads. In terms of overall Christmas spirit, I’m still going to have to give the nod to the FOX NFL broadcast crew for the amazing selections they made in holiday attire. You just can’t beat the sweater that Daryl Johnston was rocking.