Vinny Del Negro discusses how the Clippers plan to stop Kobe Bryant

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Kobe Bryant has been on quite a tear as of late.

He’s scored 40 points or more in each of the Lakers last three games, including a 48-point performance against Phoenix on Tuesday, 40 points against Utah on Wednesday and 42 points against Cleveland on Friday.

Before the Clippers and the Lakers took the court Saturday, Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro acknowledged that slowing Bryant down will be a huge challenge.

‘We talked about it this morning,’ Del Negro said. ‘Just try to take his easy baskets away, we have to be very efficient offensively to keep him out of the open court, limit his easy scores. Easy to talk about, but he’s always in attack mode so just try to do the best we can.’

Bryant leads the league in scoring with 31.2 points a game.

‘He’s going to hit some fadeaways, hit some tough shots,’ Del Negro said. ‘Different guys will get a shot at him but it will be a team defense, it won’t just be one guy.’

The Clippers won each of their two preseason games against the Lakers. This is the teams’ first regular-season matchup.

--Melissa Rohlin