Oklahoma City's Kendrick Perkins defends his remarks about Lakers

Perkins had started some drama with his disparaging remarks about the Lakers after he had been acquired from the Boston Celtics by the Oklahoma City Thunder before the trade deadline.

Now he was matter-of-fact about his statements.

Perkins said in an interview how he didn't like Pau Gasol or Lakers Coach Phil Jackson because: "Phil is arrogant. Pau is soft. Kobe Bryant tries to bring out his toughness, but he's still soft."

Sunday night, after the Thunder beat the Lakers, Perkins said: "That was my opinion. I know people are entitled to their own opinions. I know people got a lot of different opinions about me.

"So that was just my opinion from the past battles that we've had in the past playoffs. It wasn't nothing that I said out of character or was too crazy. I just spoke my mind in a way. The thing is you've just got to back it up."

Perkins' comments apparently got back to the Lakers.

Perkins and Bryant got into a shoving match and then they were hit with double technical fouls with 5:21 left in the second quarter.

Later in the second, after Bryant scored, Andrew Bynum retrieved the basketball out of the nets and threw it into Perkins' chest.

There was one last moment, when Bryant had some words for Perkins while they stood at the free-throw line with 14.1 seconds left.

"He just asked me if we were happy about this win," Perkins said. "My reply was, 'We're happy about every win. Yeah, we are happy about the win and we are going to be happy if we win tomorrow.' So who's not happy after a win? But you know, it's Kobe being Kobe."