Blake Griffin (top) was sent to the deck via a hard flagrant 2 foul by Kyle O’Quinn (below) of the Orlando Magic on Wednesday/Photos courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers, Orlando Magic and NBA.com

Although it appeared that Kyle O’Quinn got what he deserved when he was called for a flagrant 2 foul on Blake Griffin in the second quarter of Wednesday night’s 114-86 Clippers victory over Orlando, Griffin was somewhat surprised by it.

“I didn’t really see much, I closed my eyes,” Griffin said, drawing laughter from reporters in the post-game news conference. “I got hit in the face. But, honestly, I didn’t think it was going to be a flagrant 2. I didn’t think there was anything vicious or anything like that.”

With the Clippers leading 38-35 at the time, Griffin drove the paint and as he was going up he was raked hard across the face by O’Quinn. Griffin went down. To Clippers coach Doc Rivers, the flagrant 2 was warranted.

“That’s a flagrant 2 in this generation,” Rivers said. “I don’t think he was trying to hurt Blake or
anything like that. It was a hard foul and the way the game’s called now, it has to be a flagrant 2.”

With Nikola Vucevic not playing because of back spasms, the flagrant 2 and mandatory ejection of O’Quinn put the Magic down two bigs. After it happened, the Clippers went on an 8-2 run and the rest was history.

“We know Kyle and we know that there was not anything malicious about that,” Orlando power forward Channing Frye said. “They (O’Quinn and Griffin) are 250-pound men. These are two gigantic oxen going up. But that’s the way it went, and I think emotionally we just felt kind of let down from that and they took advantage of us.”