Lakers’ Bryant Fined, Suspended for Fighting

It probably had taken him most of the previous evening to simmer down, but Monday, prodigy-turned-puncher Kobe Bryant was calm, smiling and not looking to pummel anybody.

He only wished he had gotten more bang for his buck. Actually, any bang for lots of bucks.

The NBA, as expected, hit Bryant with a one-game suspension without pay--which will cost him $109,756--and a $5,000 fine for throwing punches at New York Knick Chris Childs, who was suspended for two games without pay--$101,463--and fined $15,000 for instigating Sunday’s brawl.

The only thing that still riled Bryant--and what had fed his fury Sunday--was that, whereas Childs got two free pops at Bryant’s chin, the Laker guard was unable to land anything in retaliation because they were separated immediately, then ejected.

“I don’t really like to fight that much, you know what I mean?” Bryant said after practice. “But if you get to that point where you want to fight, fight! Don’t just punch and run. That was frustrating.”

Bryant will miss tonight’s game in Phoenix, then will rejoin the Lakers in Oakland for Wednesday’s game against the Golden State Warriors.

“Right now, it feels that if I’m going to be suspended a game, I would’ve loved to have thrown the first punch,” Bryant said, adding that he knew he would be set down for at least a game.

Even before the suspension was announced, he joked with his teammates that he wouldn’t see them again until Saturday’s game against San Antonio.

A few minutes later, Shaquille O’Neal wandered over and playfully tapped him on the chin a couple times, a sign of support and a subliminal reminder that these two superstars got into a brief altercation in an informal workout in 1999.

And that part of big-time basketball is earning respect with a willingness to throw fists.

“I don’t think anybody has really ever seen that side of me--except for some of the players here in closed practices,” Bryant said.

“But if somebody’s going to push you, you’ve got to let him know where your limit is. . . . Let him know where you stand and how much you’re willing to tolerate, how much you’re willing to take.”

O’Neal, who shoved Knick center Patrick Ewing away from Bryant twice in the melee, remained firmly in Bryant’s corner.

“It’s excellent,” O’Neal said with a smile of Bryant’s willingness to mix it up. “Corporate-wise, it may not be good, but hey . . .

“They should give us a two-punch retaliation deal. He hits you first, you get the bing-bing. When guys get hit like that, I don’t know what else you’re supposed to do.”

Bryant said he has been grabbed and held much more frequently in the last few weeks. He also said that previously, he might have been too concerned with his image to get with the rumbling.

“I used to be,” he said. “Now, not really any more. Because you have to defend yourself sometimes. Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself.

“I’m not pro-fighting by any means. But if it comes to that, you have to do what you have to do. . . . Sometimes people push you to that point; my mom’s side kind of comes out of me.”

Bryant, who had been charged with only one technical foul in his career before Sunday--Feb. 15 at Chicago--and had never been in a fight during a game before, said he appreciated that O’Neal and several other teammates charged into the fray.

“I think that’s one of the differences from this team to the teams in years past,” Bryant said. “We’re willing to take a stand. We’re willing to show teams that we’re fighting for one another, point blank.

“Suspensions or not, we’ll do what we’ve got to do. But you’re not going to push our guys around--whether it’s myself, whether it’s Travis [Knight], whether it’s Shaq. . . . Whoever it may be, we’ve got each others’ back.”

Veteran guard Ron Harper agreed that there’s a time in the career of every player--especially every star--when he has to draw a line.

“He’s still a young player who plays the game hard, goes out and does the things he has to do,” Harper said. “But they will know now that whatever they do, there might be a fight. They’ll understand that now.”

Laker Coach Phil Jackson, who wasn’t available after Monday’s practice, had said Sunday that Bryant’s reaction to Childs’ punches was understandable.

“It’s pretty much a natural reaction for a player that takes a punch that he doesn’t see coming, that he’s going to react to it,” Jackson said.

Bryant said that his elbow to Childs’ face, which started the fracas, was an unintentional move to free himself for a pass and that he didn’t believe that Childs’ aggression was his way of trying to get Bryant out of the game.

“I don’t think so,” Bryant said. “I don’t think he’s that smart.”

Would Bryant like to see Childs and the Knicks again real soon, perhaps in June in the NBA finals?

“I would love to see him in the finals,” Bryant said. “But it wouldn’t be anything personal. All that stuff, you save for the summertime.”