What happened to start the Lakers-Rockets brawl?
In case you were unaware, in the Lakers' 124-115 loss to the Rockets on Saturday, a brawl broke out between both teams after a flagrant foul from Brandon Ingram late in the 4th quarter. This was the Lakers' home opener and LeBron's first regular season home game as a Laker, so the game had a lot of media attention already.
After committing a shooting foul on James Harden, Brandon Ingram went to plead his case with the referee at the time, Jason Philips, but not before shoving Harden in the back for no apparent reason.
This then led to most of the players on the court getting around the two men to prevent any further altercations. Shortly after we saw Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul exchanging words before things got physical.
Apparently Rondo spit in Paul's face, which then led to Paul sticking fingers into Rondo's face. Rondo retaliated by throwing punches, which led to the whole controversy surrounding the game.
Once the punches were thrown we saw Brandon Ingram come running back over to join in the fight, throwing a few punches of his own.
The main issue I have with this is when Brandon Ingram came back over and joined in on the punches. He had a shooting foul which he turned into a flagrant by pushing Harden but he could have left it at that.
Now because of his involvement in the brawl he will miss the Lakers' next 4 games without pay. Ingram is still a young player in this league and clearly still has lots to learn about the way the NBA should and does work.
I think Paul and Rondo should have handled things better seeing as how they are arguably two of the smartest guards in the NBA as of right now and should be aware of the consequences of their actions.
Obviously there was a lot of emotion involved as Rondo and Paul have never been the best of friends when on the court and have always played physical when matched up, but that doesn't excuse their actions.