A.J. DeLaGarza and Stefan Ishizaki have a certain celebrity, thanks to their exploits on the soccer field, but the LA Galaxy teammates found a different kind of notoriety earlier this week.
They were courtside at Staples Center for the Los Angeles Clippers' NBA game Monday night against the Denver Nuggets when Clippers star Blake Griffin careened into them while trying to keep a ball from going out of bounds.
Unsurprisingly, the video has been a hit across social-media sites since.
“I just remember a loose ball, and he was trying to save it,” DeLaGarza said Saturday during the Galaxy's 6-1 preseason romp over Cal State Fullerton at StubHub Center. “[Griffin is] a guy who hustles on both sides of the ball, and tried to save the ball. Another friend reached out to grab it, too, and when Blake threw it back, it hit the guy in the face. And then his momentum took him into my stomach.”
As a refresher, Griffin stands 6-foot-10, 250 pounds.
“I've gotten hit harder by [Alan] Gordon in practice,” said DeLaGarza, who sat out Saturday's scrimmage with a minor foot injury.
Neither DeLaGarza nor Ishizaki believe Griffin knows who they are or what they do, but after DeLaGarza sent a message to Griffin on Twitter asking if he was all right, the big Clipper responded:
DeLaGarza said he watched the video “a couple times.”
“Brendan [Hannan, the Galaxy's senior director of communications and digital] posted it, the Galaxy posted it, my friends posted it, I posted it,” he said. “It was pretty funny. I had a big smile on my face. I was laughing, and then Stefan is groping his calf muscle. I don't know what Stefan was doing. Grabs his leg for no reason.”
Ishizaki didn't recall doing so but said everything happened so fast and that he “just said, 'Good job, Blake,' and patted him.”
“I didn't really have time to react,” he said. “I was just thankful he crashed A.J. and not me. It was a cool thing. Luckily, we didn't get hurt. He's a big guy.”
