Serge Ibaka was given a Flagrant foul 1 for hitting Blake Griffin in the groin late in the Oklahoma City Thunder's win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday. But Ibaka made it clear that his punch was not intentional, but just an outcome of the aggressive play shown by Griffin.

“He hit my hands away,” Ibaka told reporters afterward. “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.”