Magic-Celtics
Rafer Alston and Eddie House were involved in the first incident of the night. Alston apparently got sick of getting his butt handed to him after House drained a three right in front of Alston. As House ran past, Alston gave him a slap in the back of the head.
It was more like a slap your mother would give you for saying a bad word at the dinner table than it was a malicious punch. Either way, Alston has to be suspended for this action because the NBA has no tolerance for blows above the shoulder.
Alston made the lamest excuse after the game stating, "He elbowed me and it was a natural reaction". Really? I, along with many others, have looked at the video plenty of time and I'm pretty sure House was just running by and you threw a cheap shot. Fortunately for the Magic, I don't think they'll miss him too much in Game 3.
Rockets-Lakers
Now to the real series that everyone cares about. If you didn't get a chance to watch last night Game 2, then here's a couple simple numbers you should see. Two ejections, five technical fouls, and one flagrant foul. Now that sounds like some turbulent basketball!
The game first got heated up in the third quarter when Lamar Odom and Luis Scola started jawing it up. Pretty soon the entire Lakers squad was bickering with Scola.
The real action started on the next play when Derek Fisher through probably one of the toughest screens I've seen in a long time on Scola. Fisher looks over his shoulder, sees Scola coming, lowers his shoulder and absolutely levels Scola onto the floor.
This seemed to almost ignite the Lakers team and they went on to dominate the rest of the game. However, this is basketball, not hockey, so Fisher has to be suspended. The tension didn't end there.
With about six minutes remaining in the game, Kobe Bryant and Ron Artest were battling for a rebound when Bryant threw a physical blockout on Artest and elbows him in the throat. Shockingly enough, Artest is whistled for the foul.
As we all know, Artest is a very animated player that doesn't put up with much. After being called for the foul, he runs over to the officials to protest the call and eventually sprint down court to Bryant and gets in his face. This gets Artest ejected and as he's leaving the court and makes a gesture of cutting Bryant's throat. This is starting to sound like WWE wrestling.
Even though the Rockets lost last night, the series is still in their hands. Not only do they still have home-court advantage but a physical series will play in their favor. Artest is shooting lights out right now, Aaron Brooks has found his touch behind the arc, and Carl Landry looked like a beast inside the paint scoring 21 points and grabbing ten rebounds off the bench. Now they just have to keep Yao out of foul trouble and they can win this series.
All I can say about all this is that this has been one of the most memorable playoffs of recent memory, and it's nowhere close to being over with. There's still a lot more physical basketball left in the Rockets-Lakers series.
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