D'Angelo Russell received a technical foul Thursday night and wants Kobe Bryant to pay for it. And Russell is right.
That doesn't mean Bryant will do it.
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The Lakers rookie point guard got teed up during the Lakers' 107-87 loss to the Rockets for leaving the bench to celebrate Bryant's dunk over Houston's Clint Capela, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"It's like the Casey Jr. train, 'I think I can. I think I can,'" said Bryant after the game. "First dribble, second dribble, I said, 'My legs feel pretty good.'"
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"Then I jumped and I was like, 'Oh, I'm still going up.' Then I said, 'I might as well give it a try,'" Bryant continued. "I thought about my shoulder a little bit. Then I said, 'Dude, how many times am I going to jump where my legs actually feel fine?'"
The dunk arguably has been the highlight of the Lakers' 4-22 season.
"I like took off and ran across the baseline, tried to get back before the ref saw me and, uh, I caught Denzel's (Washington) attention and the ref caught me and I don't know what we did," Russell said, according to ESPN.
That drew the technical on Russell for the celebration.
"The best tech that D'Angelo will ever get," Bryant later said, ESPN reported.
After the game, Russell admitted he wondered about the amount of the fine he was going to have to pay for the technical and approached his mentor about the incident.
"Hey man, you've got to pay my tech on that one," Russell told him, as ESPN recounted.
"Meh, you ran the baseline on your own free will," was Bryant's reply.
Russell didn't seem to mind.
"I told him that the next time he does something exciting, I'm just going to do this," Russell said, holding up two fingers. "You got two years left in you if you do something like that."
For one night, the Lakers forgot they are the worst team in the Western Conference. And that apparently is worth the price of the fine to Russell.
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