Russell to Kobe after celebration: ‘You’ve got to pay my tech’

“The Lakers’ record is irrelevant at this point”, said Bob Corb, president of Realize Excellence Consulting and former sports psychology program director at the University of California, Los Angeles. However, to be fair to the 37-year-old superstar, Bryant did not face O’Neal in the prime of the big man’s career.

Durant finished with 22 points and eight rebounds in 30 minutes, and Westbrook added 13 points and 11 assists in 28 minutes. The Thunder won for the fifth straight time against the Lakers. “It is easy for us to get caught up in the emotion of it all and forget to look at the tactics of it all”, Bryant said.

With Bryant out, the Lakers started seldom-used rookie Anthony Brown in his place.

In the second period, Kevin Durant mesmerized the crowd with a fancy dribbling display before he drove to the middle and scored on a slick layup.

They led 67-41 at halftime, and even when Thunder coach Billy Donovan rested his starters in the fourth the Lakers were unable to narrow the gap.

“So he says, “well, absolutely, and that’s how Kobe feels – he wants to earn it”. We didn’t come to compete and they just played harder than we did.

“I told him that the next time he does something exciting, I’m just going to do this”, Russell said, holding up two fingers.

“We have to develop our core players”, Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said in an interview with Los Angeles News Group.

Rather than a major injury, Bryant said this shoulder pain is “something that needs a couple days” to heal and that he “should be” able to play Tuesday in Denver. The Oklahoma City Thunder are shooting 36.1 percent from beyond the arc and 79 percent from the free throw line. The Oklahoma City Thunder have split their last eight road games.

It’s the first of four regular-season meetings between OKC and Lakers (4-22), who lost last season’s series 3-0. For the season he is averaging 16.7 points on dreary 33.9 percent shooting. The Thunder wore their alternate sleeved jerseys.

But when it was announced an hour before that game that Bryant would be sitting out with a sore shoulder, that took a little of steam out of facing the struggling Los Angeles squad.

He added that the dunk “didn’t help”, but said the flare-up wasn’t unexpected as he pushes through his 20th and final season in the National Basketball Association. With a three-day break before meeting the Lakers, on Monday night certain Bucks players visited an LA strip club at stayed out until at least 2 a.m., as documented by TMZ.

“That was pretty heavy-duty surgery I had this summer, so I think it’s kind of logical to expect it to be sore at some point”, Bryant said. “If you have that attitude, the city will absolutely love you and you’ll get this team back to playing and winning at a level that it’s accustomed to”.