Locker room fracas at Staples
Bad blood between Clippers, Rockets boils over off court after game
The dust had hardly settled at Staples Center on Monday night, and Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers was already tying an unofficial bow on the investigation into a postgame locker room dust-up between his team and the Houston Rockets.
“I saw (the situation unfold) near our locker room,” Rivers said about the Chris Paul reunion game gone wrong. “Let’s put it like this: We were all — our team (was) in our locker room. That’s all I’ll say. I’ll let you do the rest of the investigation. I will say, their entire team was not in their locker room. Now you’re going to have to figure it out from there, but I’ve led you pretty well on that one.”
While the NBA’s formal investigation is already underway, the smart money is on Rivers’ early analysis holding up. According to three people with knowledge of the situation, the Rockets — still incensed by everything from Blake Griffin’s antics to injured Austin Rivers’ chirping from the bench — were indeed the aggressors.
Veteran Trevor Ariza led the charge, with Paul, James Harden and Gerald Green following as the Rockets made their way through the Clippers training room and into the locker room through a back hallway that isn’t accessible to the media. According to a person with knowledge of the league’s investigation, Paul and Harden have been portrayed by several witnesses as peacemakers once the situation reached that point.
Clippers big man DeAndre Jordan, who did not play because of an ankle injury, was the first to respond to the unwelcome visitors when he stood up from his nearby locker. Words were exchanged, with always-outspoken Clippers point guard Pat Beverley among the most vocal. With staff members closing the front door of the locker room so that Rockets in the hallway couldn’t enter from that direction, Clippers security officials intervened before any punches were thrown.
There’s nothing secret about the path the Rockets players took. It is commonly used as a place for players on different teams to socialize or for league officials to move more freely when the main hallway gets crowded during the playoffs. Paul and Ariza were certainly familiar with that route, with the former having spent his past six seasons with the Clippers and Ariza two seasons with the Lakers. But it also wasn’t the first time something like this had happened involving that now-infamous space.
On May 3, 2014, the Paul-led Clippers downed Golden State in Game 7 of a contentious first-round playoff matchup and found themselves in a similar situation afterward. Yet while that verbal back-and-forth went no further than the hallway, it took security officials inside the Clippers locker room to keep the matter from escalating Monday.
The on-court sparks that led to it were easy to see: Griffin bumping into Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni late in the fourth quarter as he argued with an offi- cial, which led to the player and coach exchanging harsh words; Ariza ripping Griffin’s leg tights during play soon thereafter, with the wardrobe malfunction adding to the WWE-style scene; Austin Rivers — whose presence has been seen by some as an obstacle to Doc’s relationships with players such as Paul — engaging in a shouting match with Ariza that led to Griffin bumping Ariza on the floor.
So why all the angst between these teams?
Emotions were bound to be raw because of Paul’s return. He not only forced a trade to the Rockets in late June but also later criticized the Clippers’ culture during an ESPN show that offered a behind-the-scenes look at his decision. That sentiment didn’t sit well with the Clippers, Doc Rivers firing back, “When you leave, just leave.”
Griffin, who became the face of the franchise again by signing a five-year,
$175 million deal with the Clippers last summer, surely bristled at those comments too. What’s more, Paul’s sentiment on his way out painted a far different picture from the “better now than ever” perspective he shared with USA TODAY during his last season.
The animus toward Austin Rivers is nothing new. The 25-year-old guard has been a lightning rod of sorts since joining the Clippers via trade in January
2015, becoming the first son in NBA history to play for his father. Not long after Paul’s departure, a report on ESPN said Doc’s treatment of Austin was a driving force behind his decision to leave.
At the time, Austin told USA TODAY the report was “bull(expletive)” and said he had a 40-minute phone conversation with Paul to clear the air.
All of it came bubbling to the surface in those final few minutes on the floor, and then again in the Clippers locker room where all that bluster came pouring out. In due time, though, the NBA will have the final word.