The NBA world is abuzz over the fight that broke out between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets at Staples Center on Saturday night. Brandon Ingram shoved James Harden, which led to some jawing that didn’t seem especially nefarious. However, Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo got into it, with those two and Ingram throwing punches.
No one could really believe it happened, and it sounds like punishments could be handed down sooner rather than later. All of this begs the question: What the hell happened to have the long-existing tensions between Paul and Rondo boil over like this?
According to a few members of the Rockets, things got turned up to an 11 when Rondo apparently spit in Paul’s face, leading to Paul sticking his finger in Rondo’s grill before punches were thrown. Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni made this claim when he met with the media.
Mike D’Antoni said “some spit was thrown” when discussing the Paul-Rondo fight.
— Dan Woike (@DanWoikeSports) October 21, 2018
Harden, meanwhile, wasn’t totally sure what happened, but trusted that Paul was being honest when he shared what went down.
“That’s what was said,” Harden told the media. “That’s what he said. As a man, I mean, anything you can do and react is … stand up for yourself. We’ll see how it plays out, but it is what it is.”
The most damning allegation came from Carmelo Anthony, who confirmed the claim that Rondo spit on Paul and said that it was “bullsh*t.”
Camelo Anthony said Rajon Rondo spitting on Chris Paul was “unacceptable” pic.twitter.com/hRjov5mKsO
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) October 21, 2018
As for the other side of things, Lakers guard Lance Stephenson says he did not see Rondo spit on Paul, but still had his teammate’s back.
Lance didn’t see anyone spit in anyone’s face, but said he didn’t think Chris Paul should have touched Rondo’s face. After that, he said “you know what’s gonna happen.”
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) October 21, 2018
In fairness to Stephenson, he was the person who was pulling Ingram away from his initial shove of Harden, so he would not have seen anything go down. However, Stephenson is hardly the only person on the Lakers who are backing up Rondo in this one, per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Sources: Lakers officials watched tape and are backing Rajon Rondo’s contention that he didn’t spit on Chris Paul. Meanwhile, CP3 and Rockets are insisting that Rondo did spit. “Lot of history between them,” one source connected to both players says.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 21, 2018
Rondo spitting on Paul would make sense as to why things got as tense as they did, but Los Angeles seems like it’s going to fight any claims that this happened. At the very least, the next 24 hours or so of this story stand to get really interesting as the NBA will likely pay special attention as to whether this set off the entire sequence of events.
