Two Rockets suspended for incident with Clippers
Trevor Ariza said nothing happened. The NBA strongly disagreed.
Ariza and Gerald Green will both be suspended for Houston’s next two games, with the NBA coming down hard on both players Wednesday for what the league said was their “hostile, verbal altercation” in the Los Angeles Clippers’ locker room earlier this week.
No other players were disciplined, including Rockets guards James Harden and Chris Paul — both of whom left the Houston locker room with hopes of defusing the situation, the league said.
“You guys had a lot of different stories about what happened, none of them which were true,” Ariza said Wednesday in Houston, before the league announced the suspensions. “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion. The people that were there know exactly what happened and know exactly what did not happen.”
So what happened? “Nothing happened,” Ariza said. “That’s what happened. Nothing.” Later, though, he conceded “obviously, that’s not all that happened.”
Whatever it was that went on remains a mystery of sorts. The final minutes of the game — Paul’s first time facing the Clippers in Los Angeles as an opponent since the trade that sent him to Houston over the summer — were marred by some on-court feistiness, including the Clippers’ Blake Griffin appearing to exchange words with Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni.
Griffin and Ariza were also ejected before the final horn, and some players seemed to be engaging in words with injured Clippers guard Austin Rivers, the son of coach Doc Rivers.
“It’s over,” Paul said. “It’s in the past. We’re moving on.”
Ariza and Green will miss games against Minnesota on Thursday and Golden State on Saturday. Ariza has started all 40 of his appearances with Houston this season, and Green has played in 10 games with the team as a reserve.