McInnis Denies Making Threats Against Oakley

Point guard Jeff McInnis said he never threatened Toronto forward Charles Oakley, who was suspended for three games by the league after he punched McInnis in the face last week.

Oakley, who was also fined $15,000, was quoted in the Toronto Sun saying that McInnis had threatened his life.

“Why would I threaten a 6-foot-9, 260-pound guy?” said McInnis, who is 6-4 and 178 pounds. Oakley is 6-9, 245. “The truth will come out.”

*

Dennis Johnson was in the running for the Clippers’ head coaching job all summer but ended up returning as an assistant when the team hired Alvin Gentry.

But Johnson was called to duty Monday night when he had to take over for Gentry, who was ejected late in the second quarter with the Clippers down by 21 points.

“You never want to say that you knew that a game wasn’t going to turn out right but the way we were playing, we had no energy,” said Johnson, who along with fellow assistants John Hammond, Rex Kalamian and Igor Kokoskov had a tough time getting any consistency from their players in the second half. “I’m not a person to yell or scream, but I tried to challenge a few people . . . That was an embarrassment but we also told them that everyone has games like that.”

*

The Clippers’ next game will be Wednesday when they play the Washington Wizards in their fourth game of a six-game trip. The team will not practice today but the coaching staff along with several players will take a tour of the White House.