When I think of the craziest off-the-court incidents in recent NBA history, my mind immediately goes to the infamous tunnel incident involving the Los Angeles Clippers and the Houston Rockets in 2018 at the then-Staples Center. DeAndre Jordan played for the Clippers at the time and during an appearance on Podcast P with Paul George, he was asked to shed some more light on that incident
“A lot of it’s true,” Jordan said. “That was a very emotional game. Obviously, Chris’ (Paul) first game I believe back in LA after he went to the Rockets. I love CP, but that night it was like, ‘F*** CP.’
“It was just a lot of s*** talking being thrown around,” Jordan continued. “… I think it kinda got a little more than between two players and I don’t wanna say those players’ names but you guys could kind of guess who those guys were.
“One guy’s from the great city of Los Angeles, another guy is from the great state of Florida,” Jordan stated. “They kind of got into it towards the end of the game and you know how the hallway is the visitor’s side. If you walk through the back, you can get to the Clippers locker room.
“So I’m sitting at my locker… my locker’s in the corner right there, my former locker,” Jordan added. “I’m sitting there and then all of a sudden I see the homie from the Rockets right here and I’m like, ‘Yo. Hey, what are you doing, bro? You can’t be up in here, get out. What are you doing?’
“I’m standing up, he’s like, ‘No, I’m looking for somebody … I’m looking for that motherf***** right there.’ And I’m like, ‘Nah, bro, you gotta get out of here.’ I got my boot on, I’m trying to push my dog out of here ’cause we have a relationship,” Jordan said. “I’m pushing him out of here. When I push him out to the hallway, I see the whole Rockets team.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, s***.’ I’m like, ‘This ain’t for me.’ And I’m like, ‘What y’all doing?’ (They said), ‘No, want to so and so so. We just want to talk to him.’ I’m like, ‘Y’all not talking to him. All 15 of y’all want to talk to him? No, that’s not happening.’ Then when I turn around, I got my whole teammates here,” Jordan said. “Somebody has a weight in their hand, so this was just like a crazy situation.
“It was escalating but at the end of the day, I don’t think nobody in the league want to fight,” Jordan stated. “… Security came in there and kinda separated everything and it was dead after that. But it was quite animated.”
(starts at 1:11:38 mark):
That was just incredible. I can only imagine the shock on Jordan’s face when he saw that Rockets player make his way in. As for who were the two main characters, I think that’s fairly obvious.
Trevor Ariza was born in Miami, Florida while Austin Rivers was born in Santa Monica, California. The two of them were seen exchanging words during the game and things just escalated after the Clippers won 113-102.
Here's Austin Rivers in a boot yappin at Trevor Ariza pic.twitter.com/iidZrWq1cg
— Aaron Bruski (@aaronbruski) January 16, 2018
Fortunately, no one was hurt after all that. The NBA did punish some of the individuals involved, though, as Ariza and Gerald Green were suspended for two games for entering the Clippers’ locker room. Ariza later called Rivers and his former Rockets teammates who were on the Clippers to apologize for his actions.
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