Benches cleared at the end of Wednesday night’s Western Conference playoff game between the Portland Trail Blazers and Denver Nuggets.
The fight broke out as the Blazers led the game by seven points with 43 seconds left on the clock. The fight was spurred after Blazers’ center Enes Kanter knocked Nuggets forward Torrey Craig to the ground. (RELATED: Turkey Seeks To Extradite NBA Star Who Opposes Erdogan)
Despite the contact appearing to be incidental, Nuggets’ players did not take kindly to seeing one of their own hit the ground.
Enes Kanter and Jamal Murray earned double techs after a scuffle in Game 2 ???? pic.twitter.com/NBA762ipSK
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 2, 2019
Again, nothing appears to be intentional there on Kanter’s part. Kanter is well-known as one of the classiest players in the league, so doing something to intentionally hurt another player would be completely out of character for him. (RELATED: DeMar DeRozan Gets Ejected For Throwing Ball At Ref)
I think Nuggets’ players completely overreacted here, but it’s not a huge deal. The intensity of playoff basketball is on another level, but it has been lacking this year.
In an era where the talk of the league is always about superstars teaming up with each other in free agency, it’s fun to watch a couple of blue-collar teams battle it out.