The Rockets made a statement about power in the West and fists were flying over accusations of spitting.
Last night LA and the Staples Center were ready to explode as the King, LeBron James, was making his highly anticipated home debut for the Lakers.
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LeBron’s first intro in LA https://t.co/MDM83sWI1i
The game was both exciting and intense, the scoring going back and forth all night as the stars, LeBron, Chris Paul and Harden went at it all game. But then late in the fourth quarter with around four minutes left, all hell broke loose after Brandon Ingram was called for a foul on James Harden with the Rockets leading 109 – 108. After Ingram was hit with a tech, Paul and Rajon Rondo started having words, which lead to Paul sticking his finger in Rondo’s face and Rondo throwing a punch in retaliation, and that’s when things went South.
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Chris Paul throws punches at Rondo for allegedly spitting on him ,….brawl breaks out https://t.co/1k1a7jRunY
Paul claimed that Rondo spit on him and Carmelo Anthony appeared to come to his defense.
”Unacceptable,” said Anthony. ”We all know what happened. Ain’t no need to keep going back and forth about that. What happened was unacceptable. It shouldn’t have happened.”
During the brawl, Ingram threw punches at Chris Paul and LeBron pulled Paul away from the melee as both the coaches and referees attempted to break up the fight, some of which might have been brewing from an earlier flagrant foul of the Lakers’ Josh Hart by Houston’s James Ennis III earlier in that fourth quarter.
After cooler heads prevailed, Paul, Rondo and Ingram were ejected and the Rockets went on to defeat the Lakers, 124 – 115.
The fight marred what was not only a great game, but also a night where the stars’ brilliance was on full display. Harden had 36 points, 5 assists and 7 boards and Paul went for 28, 10 and 7 before being ejected. On the Lakers side, LeBron had 24, 5 and 5, Rondo went for 13 with 10 assists and Ingram and 12 points before the latter two were ejected.
“The atmosphere was great,” said James. ”The fans were extremely excited. We gave them everything that we could. Wish we could have gave them more with this win, but it was very electric.”
After this unfortunate event, expect those players to be suspended and fined in the next few days.
