Los Angeles Lakers: People are missing the point about the fight!

The Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets had an ugly brawl Saturday night that will cost the teams dearly.

The Los Angeles Lakers lost their second game of the season, losing to the Houston Rockets 124-115 in one of the most hyped games, in my opinion, since Michael Jordan decided to come back to the NBA the first time!

LeBron James led the Lakers with 24 points, five rebounds and five assists. JaVale McGee had 16 points and six rebounds and five blocks. Rajon Rondo nearly triple-doubled with 13 points, ten assists and seven rebounds.

James Harden led everyone in the building with 36 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Chris Paul dropped 28 points, corralled seven rebounds and dished out ten assists.

Sadly, no one will remember any of this because Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul were tossed out for fighting (I mean fighting…no dancing like normal NBA fights…FIGHTING!) and Brandon Ingram followed him out for throwing punches which landed on Chris Paul.

Before we break down who is wrong and second guessing who should have done what to who, let’s see what happened in full…

With about four minutes left in the game, you see James Harden coming down on the break. Running back on defense is Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram. Harden lowers his shoulder into Ingram and bulls him out of the way and hits the layup.

After the referees wave off the basket, you see Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Harden argue that the shot should have counted. When Harden passes Ingram, Ingram shoves Harden in the back.

Then Ingram further fans the flames by getting in the referee’s face and putting a finger in it… at that point Lance Stephenson comes in and grabs Ingram and moves him out of the way.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1053882201283059712

By then the house was on fire and it was too late.

We will know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop before we find out what really happened to lead up to why punches are thrown. There were reports that Rondo spit on Chris Paul’s face, which Rondo denies.

Paul putting his finger in Rondo’s face DEFINITELY lead to Rondo swinging. There have been reports that Carmelo Anthony may have spit on Chris Paul talking trying to break things up. Who knows?

But Lakers fans, even in that fracas that happened, and let’s be clear here, Rajon Rondo was wrong and Brandon Ingram was just plain stupid…BUT! This is a watershed moment for the Los Angeles Lakers. As of this moment right now! Who’s going to be the lightning rod while these guys are taking an unpaid vacation?…

Yes! That would be LeBron James. Don’t think that some of the Lakers roster will look at James a little differently after this. But let me tell you all something…

This can’t happen if you are the leader of the Lakers! LeBron James will face criticism and deservedly so. Even though it was not intentional, Chris Paul was being held by James when Ingram came back and punched Paul in the face. James walked Paul off the floor…

https://twitter.com/BBallSociety_/status/1053875173387055104

NO! You go support your teammates! Not the opponent. James should have been over to Brandon Ingram trying to calm him down! NOT CHRIS PAUL!

Ingram is the young guy who needs guidance in this situation. Ingram is the guy who James is trying to build a team with! This is where LeBron James has to be a leader for the Lakers! These are going to be questions that LeBron James will be facing the next 48-72 hours, trust me…

Where does this guy’s allegiance lie?

Where is his competitive drive to win?!!

When you see these back and forth debates on social media most of them are ridiculous because it is all about the eras, but I do know this…

Larry Bird wouldn’t do this…

Magic Johnson wouldn’t do this…

Michael Jordan wouldn’t do this…

Kobe Bryant?…PFFT! Please!

Any Lakers fan has seen Shaq do his thing in a scuffle!

Think I’m playing around and overreacting about LeBron getting clowned and laughed at? Check this tweet out.

James Harden didn’t do anything wrong basketball-wise. He has been doing that shoulder move since the Thunder days. That is a vintage move from Harden. With the game on the line, the first and last thing that Harden is thinking about is getting to the basket and drawing a foul. Take a look at the video and you will see that he was shocked that Harden pushed him in the back.

Furthermore, Harden didn’t even care about Ingram at this point. He was looking for the basket plus the foul. Ingram, in fact, was very lucky it wasn’t an “and one” on the play because of the continuation to the basket after the contact.

But it’s more than that for Ingram here. He HAS to grow from this…

So? Where’s the excuse here?

This may seem kind of cold but Ingram is a skinny dude that will be targeted. PERIOD! This is what bigger players do to guys that are built like Ingram, they get physical with him. That’s basketball 101 NBA fans!

To be clear, the only way Ingram can combat this is to get stronger! That’s it! Plus the argument of James Ennis III clothes-lining Josh Hart for a flagrant one a few minutes before the incident happened is a weak excuse as well. If the Lakers were that upset, the incident would have started there instead of where we are talking about at this point.

The push on Harden was bad but not as ridiculous as getting in the referee’s face and putting a finger in his face as well. Everyone is going to talk about the punches thrown between Rondo and Paul, but now that the NBA is looking at everything, that will be seen. Ingram is lucky, as he is reportedly only being suspended four games!

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He ran up and punched Chris Paul with a closed fist! This was done AFTER he was pushed away by Stephenson. This could be construed as premeditation! He had time to calm down and when the next scrum happened, he swung at Paul. This can’t happen! Oh, by the way, Kiki Vandeweghe was in attendance. To those who don’t know who he is, he’s the guy who gives out suspensions.

Lakers fans need to realize that Ingram is the second best player on the team! No question. Now he will be out for a decent amount of games and this will hurt the team immensely.

The jury was out on if the Lakers were going to the playoffs with Ingram. This is a huge distraction that the Lakers do not need. This will affect Ingram in a lot of ways when he gets back as well.

He will lose his rhythm and trust me, the rest of the NBA teams will take notice of what happened and take full advantage of it. Everyone will study what happened and will use physicality every chance they get. Believe me, opponents will FIND ways to get under his skin in crunch time of big games.

Finally…

Since this incident, Twitter went nuts with memes, GIFs, you name it. A lot of these posts had captions that were totally out of line. Even some of the posts I used above was a chore to find! I had to scour to find these because of the profanity and racially insensitive words on so much of the others. A lot of people looked at this as a joke! It’s not.

After the game, there were reports that Chris Paul’s wife was confronted by one of Rondo’s family members…

Anybody think that’s funny? I don’t. Jada Paul is an innocent bystander and if this is true, this will set a bad precedent for the future. What if she had her children with her? Does that sound like a joke? What if she had been assaulted? Then this goes past an NBA matter to a police matter. Based on the investigation, that might not be off the table yet!

You would be surprised how many people actually praised Brandon Ingram for what he did on social media. One tweet even had his face put on a character of the movie Above the Rim pulling a gun out. Is this funny? Children are watching, folks!

On a personal note, I have been a witness to playing a street basketball game where someone went to their car and got a gun and started shooting over a foul call. There are plenty of kids (and adults) that will see this on TV and possibly go out and do the same thing on the blacktop. This is funny? Not in the least…it’s tragic!

Lake Show Life will be following this story and will keep you up to date on the latest developments on the website and online.