There’s something about playoff basketball between division rivals — played in front of a packed crowd — that just brings intensity to the game. And sometimes that intensity can boil over just as we saw during Sunday’s Game 1 of the NBA playoffs between the Suns and Lakers.
With Phoenix hosting its first NBA playoff game in a decade, the Suns held a late lead with LeBron James at the free-throw line. The altercation sparked after LeBron took a hard fall following his rebound attempt on the missed free throw.
While LeBron was on the ground in pain (or, at least, selling his pain), Cam Payne decked Alex Caruso and threw the ball at him, which led to a heated exchange and somewhat hilarious cameo from Montrezl Harrell.
Players had to be separated after a CP3 loose ball foul on LeBron. pic.twitter.com/KpFxOPco6r
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 23, 2021
Harrell came running in from some 20-plus feet away to talk trash and evidently was going too fast because he nearly knocked Payne off his feet. The immediate reaction to catch Payne before he fell was a pretty solid indicator that Harrell didn’t mean to make contact there.
Harrell going coast to coast to defend Caruso pic.twitter.com/vkGeKpRHjy
— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) May 23, 2021
After a nearly six-minute delay, Payne would get ejected (the hip check and ball throw each counted as technicals). Caruso and Harrell would also get T’d up but were not ejected.
LeBron, as you probably guessed, was fine and stayed in the game.
