LOS ANGELES – More than an hour had passed since the last punches were thrown on the Staples Center floor, and all the leading experts on NBA fisticuffs had departed for the night.
Charles Oakley, on hand to see fellow Ohio native LeBron James make his Staples Center debut against Houston, weighed in on the midcourt melee between Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo that stole the show before disappearing into the night.
“You walk up on somebody, you’d better be ready to fight,” Oakley told The Athletic. “That’s what they always told me. I know Chris and Rondo, and they’re feisty guys, so #### happens.”
Ditto for Metta World Peace, the former Laker of “Malice at the Palace” infamy who came by press row in the aftermath to joke with reporters about how they were starting trouble. And then there was Floyd Mayweather, the prize fighter who was sitting at midcourt when Paul started spreading the word that an alleged spit from Rondo had sparked all this fury.
But when 11 p.m. arrived on the loading dock inside this storied arena, the tension remained. There were cars of the most luxurious kind all around, with police officers stationed on the perimeter and red-coated security guards also keeping watch.
There were Lakers players coming and going – some who had been involved in the fight (Brandon Ingram) and others who were not (Lance Stephenson, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart among them). There was Rondo’s agent, Bill Duffy of BDA Sports, monitoring the scene after his accused client had already departed. And there was Paul, in a red Winston-Salem State University sweater and black glasses, sitting on the back of a golf cart with his wife while waiting for their black Chevy Suburban to arrive.
For nearly a half hour, he sat there taking visitors. His new Rockets teammate, Carmelo Anthony, came by and was quickly followed by their other Banana Boat buddy, LeBron, repping the Dodgers in a personalized cap, before he left in a white Maybach.
Each player had his view on what was a sudden and explosive altercation near the end of a celebratory night. So, too, no doubt, did the NBA’s resident enforcer of discipline, vice president of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe, who was also on hand for the game.
With the Rockets set to play at the Clippers on Sunday, VanDeWeghe will have to study the security tape and consult with his staff before deciding on the forthcoming discipline.
What he sees will determine the severity of the punishment for the brawl’s most active participants – Paul, Rondo and Ingram.
The Athletic collected several other views as well. Lakers writer Bill Oram, Rockets writer Kelly Iko, NBA insider Shams Charania and fellow Los Angeles writer Jovan Buha were also all in attendance and contributed to this report.
This is what those who were part of it saw.
Carmelo Anthony, Rockets forward: It was bull####. Plain and simple. Unacceptable.
JaVale McGee, Lakers center: I didn’t see it personally, but I just saw it like everybody else saw it — on Instagram.
Mike D’Antoni, Rockets coach: I saw it from a distance, I wasn’t getting into that. I had glasses on. I couldn’t go in there.
P.J. Tucker, Rockets forward: It’s crazy. Situations get out of hand, and that’s fine. They get testy – that’s fine. But you start swinging and going wild, stuff starts happening, doing disrespectful stuff, and that’s when stuff gets to another level.
Tension had been building since early in the game. Harden received a technical foul in the second quarter after bumping Lance Stephenson after the Lakers swingman, a famed instigator in his own right, scored his third of three straight baskets. On another Rockets possession, Paul sent Rondo sprawling on his backside after driving hard from the right and seemed to celebrate his own strength afterward by flexing – twice – before mimicking push-ups as he ran the other way. But the Lakers pointed to a different play in the fourth quarter as precipitating the eventual melee.
Luke Walton: The clothesline, like three minutes prior to that. I saw that and I have zero idea how that’s a flagrant 1. … He clotheslined our guy, he picked him up off his feet and slammed him on his back. It was a flagrant 1. That is, to me, if I’m a player or teammate, ‘If that’s only a flagrant 1, then we can play a little more physical.’ I didn’t sense anything too crazy besides our guys were a little irritated that that happened and wasn’t penalized more.
The play Walton was referencing came with 9:47 remaining in the game. Lakers guard Josh Hart tried to cross over Rockets forward James Ennis III for a layup. Ennis fouled Hart across the chest flipping him onto his back.
Josh Hart: I was just clotheslined. I don’t really know what else you want me to say.
Officials reviewed the play, eventually ruling it a flagrant 1. A flagrant 2 would have resulted in an automatic ejection. The Lakers trailed 103-97 after the hard foul, but climbed back to pull within one four minutes later.
Hart: Whenever you have something that’s not a basketball play, you know sometimes tensions flare. I think that definitely aided to some things.
Kyle Kuzma, Lakers forward: We got a little bit of momentum from (the flagrant), but didn’t really do enough.
McGee: I feel like that motivated us to even go harder. Josh Hart is one of the toughest guys on the team, he got knocked down with a flagrant 1 and got right up. It didn’t take the sweat off his brow.
The Lakers trailed 109-108 when LeBron James missed a six-foot hook shot, and James Harden grabbed the rebound. He went coast-to-coast, colliding with Lakers forward Brandon Ingram. Harden flailed after the contact, and Ingram was whistled for his fourth foul.
Lance Stephenson, Lakers guard: I think (the Rockets) was picking on him. That’s why I tried to grab him as quickly as possible and tell him, ‘Hey don’t fall for the trick.’ And um, I guess we fell for it.
Visibly frustrated by the call, Ingram turned from the basket and shoved Harden. When referee Jason Phillips tried to intervene, the typically mild-mannered Ingram appeared to berate the veteran referee.
McGee: He’s usually quiet, but I mean, you poke a bear, bound to get bit.
LeBron James, Lakers forward: I’m learning everyone around here. That’s all part of it. I love B.I. and in my small time with him so far, I am with him throughout whatever.
Stephenson: Nobody really wanna fight. I felt like the other team was trying to provoke us, and we fell for it. But nobody really wanna fight. We just want to play hard and win the game.
James: I don’t know about provoking and all that. We just want to play basketball.
Lonzo Ball, Lakers guard: He’s a tough dude. So obviously something happened.
Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul, two of the fieriest point guards in the NBA, both ran in to help break up the escalating kerfuffle. The two veteran point guards have history themselves.
Rondo and Paul proceeded to have a heated discussion. Sources told The Athletic that Paul was adamant Rondo had spit in his face before he proceeded to poke the Lakers point guard in the eye.
Anthony: You don’t do that. You don’t do that to nobody. In sports, on the streets, that’s blatant disrespectful. That’s unacceptable.
P.J. Tucker, Rockets forward: You’re a grown man. If somebody spit on you, it’s crazy. It’s over (at that point). There ain’t nothing else to talk about. Nothing else to talk about. That’s just the ultimate disrespect. Not even swinging (is worse). Spitting on somebody is the ultimate.
Paul wiped his face as the two stood face to face. A source close to Rondo, meanwhile, was adamant that Rondo had not spit on Paul.
Lonzo Ball: I didn’t see that. I saw Chris Paul touch his face then go from there.
Stephenson: I gotta look at the replay. I didn’t see that or hear that.
James Harden, Rockets guard: As a man, all you can do is react and stand up for yourself. So we’ll see how it play out. But it is what it is.
Rondo threw three punches, landing two of them. Paul responded with an uppercut of his own.
Ingram, who had been pulled to center court, sprinted back into the fracas. Video showed him throwing a punch into a crowd that included Paul, Rondo and Tucker.
Walton: I didn’t see it happening. I saw them get into it but the refs were there. I thought at that point, it was broken up. I started to get into my board to think about what play we wanted to run, if we were going to make substitutions or things like that. And I looked back up and there was mayhem going on. I didn’t see how the whole thing escalated.
Harden: I got pushed in the back. I looked and CP and Rondo kind of laughed it off so I turned my head and walked away. So I kind of didn’t see what happened.
The drama extended beyond the court. A heated Paul told teammates and coaches in the locker room afterward that Rondo’s girlfriend had sparked a verbal confrontation with Chris’ wife in the stands, according to sources.
Tucker: We’re all grown men. That’s where it should be (left, on the court), unless somebody gets disrespected in the kind of way where they feel like it was taken further, then it is what it is.
Stephenson: I felt like (Paul) shouldn’t have put his hand in Rondo’s face. ‘Cause you hit somebody in the face, you know what’s gonna happen after that.
Kuzma: (Rondo’s) just a competitive guy. He goes out and gets it every single night and emotion got the best of him. But at the same time that’s gonna happen.
Anthony wrapped Ingram in a bear hug and pulled him away, while Ball and Stephenson helped shepherd him to the far end of the court.
Ball: My job was just to get him out of there before he got the tech.
Kuzma: There’s definitely a time and place, but at the end of the day I’d rather see a guy with some fight in him.
McGee: Unfortunately it means somebody’s probably going to get suspended. We need all our players, especially Rondo. He’s one of the vocal leaders and the leaders on the team who really jells and keeps us together, so that’s going to be unfortunate.
D’Antoni: The NBA will sort it out, it was some heated stuff. I’m sure some spit was thrown and when you cross the line it happens.
Harden: Once they come out with it, maybe we don’t agree. But we’ll move on from there. Chris had to stand up for himself. It is what it is.
Oakley: They ain’t gonna do nothing. It’s a different league now. A soft league. And the people who run the league are soft.
Bill Oram, Kelly Iko, Shams Charania and Jovan Buha contributed to this story.