Los Angeles Lakers: Could there be a silver lining after Saturday’s fight?

Although the fight during the Houston Rockets game will undoubtedly hurt the Los Angeles Lakers for the next few games, there may be a bright side to all this.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ home opener against the Houston Rockets was supposed to be a marquee event, not just for Laker Nation but for the whole basketball world.

It was expected to be the home debut of the modern-day version of Showtime, starring Lebron James and friends, and hopefully a preview of things of come, i.e. a Lakers win, against an elite team like the Houston Rockets.

Instead, the purple and gold suffered a loss that was ugly in more ways than one. They lost 124-115 because they got outrebounded by 10, they kept throwing up bricks from downtown and they couldn’t stop James Harden from getting to the rim or the free throw line.

Then there was one of the nastiest fights we’ve ever seen.

It was one of the few times an NBA player threw a punch during a game that actually landed. The only other time I can actually remember a player landing a punch was the Malice at the Palace, although, of course, Ron Artest was brawling with fans and not other players.

Those of you who are much more experienced than me may remember another former Laker by the name of Kermit Washington socking Rockets All-Star Rudy Tomjanovich and nearly killing him in the late 1970’s.

Let me be clear – when Brandon Ingram shoved James Harden after fouling him, then threw a punch after the initial melee between Rondo and Paul, he was being stupid. There was absolutely no need for any of that. He deserves to get suspended for four games.

But at the same time, there’s a saying that in every piece of adversity there is a seed of equivalent benefit. Could it be that Ingram and Rondo sent a message to the rest of the NBA that the Lakers are a team that will not be manhandled?

Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic here, but I do remember Magic Johnson said during the offseason that one of the reasons they signed Rondo, as well as Lance Stephenson, was because they wanted some tough, mean guys. That is because the young guys on this team were too quiet and laid-back.

Rondo has always been a mercurial player who has even gotten into minor incidents with his coaches and teammates. While that kind of temperament is a double-edged sword, it can have its benefits. Could it be that this influence is already rubbing off on guys like Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart and Kyle Kuzma?

If so, this could be a good thing, as long as, of course, they harness it in a much more mature way. This Lakers team has a noticeable lack of widebody players who are able to throw their weight around in the paint, box out, set mean picks and the like. I don’t care how soft you think today’s NBA is, you still need guys like that to win in this league.

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The Warriors have Draymond Green. Lebron’s 2016 championship-winning Cavs had Tristan Thompson. Past Lakers championship teams had enforcers like the aforementioned Ron Artest, Rick Fox and Kurt Rambis, all guys who gave no quarter.

I’ve been skeptical about the signing of Stephenson, but if he plays well, he could become this unit’s tough guy. He did just fine on Saturday, scoring nine points on 4-of-7 shooting and grabbing six rebounds in just 23 minutes.

If you forgot, a few minutes before the fight on Saturday, Josh Hart was clotheslined by James Ennis III. Maybe some kind of message needed to be sent to the visitors from Texas.

A soft team might’ve just shrugged away that flagrant one foul by Ennis, or Paul sticking his finger in Rondo’s face. While it would seem like the classy thing to do, sometimes turning the other cheek will result in the other guy hitting or punching you on the other cheek.

Instead, you need to stand up to your bullies. Maybe throwing punches, shoving guys or taking cheap shots isn’t the best way to do that, but at least in the future, being tough and physical within the confines of the rules of the game will get it done.

Knowing how smart Rondo is on and off the court, it’s possible that one reason he did what he did was to put the rest of the league on notice. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but even if that’s not what he had in mind, it may have still happened.

Here’s hoping that this incident will light a fire under the Lakers’ collective you-know-what. They need to get tougher on the boards and defend the paint better – they gave up 52 points in the paint to Houston, and 56 on Thursday to Portland. That’s not a recipe for winning basketball games, especially for a fast break team like the Lakers.

In addition, as my colleague Ronald Agers pointed out in his own article, teams may look to target Laker players like Ingram because they are young, skinny and a little immature. Not only do they need to learn how to handle it, but the veterans on this team also need to do their part.

As their former coach Pat Riley told his team before Game 2 of the 1985 NBA Finals after they got bullied and beaten by the Boston Celtics in the previous year’s championship series, “There comes a time when you have to plant your feet, take a stand and kick some butt.”

With almost their entire season ahead of them, and a tough road ahead just to make the playoffs in the always-deep Western Conference, this is the time for the Lakers to do just that.

Hopefully Saturday night, in its own weird way, was a step in that direction.