James Harden, CP3 Among Rockets Who Forced Way Into Clippers Locker Room

Chris Paul’s return to Hollywood didn’t go as planned. The Houston Rockets lost to the Los Angeles Clippers and as the game wound down, things got chippy between the two Western Conference foes. A few scuffles on the court lead to a pair of ejections, but things didn’t end there.

After the game, Paul, teammate James Harden and a few other Rockets players reportedly pushed their way into the Clippers locker room to confront their opponents.

It was a tense atmosphere throughout the night but with a few minutes left things boiled over. It started when Blake Griffin and Paul got into a tussle, for which the point guard was called for a foul. He protested the call to the officials, and while that went on, Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni started jawing at Griffin. D’Antoni clearly lobbed some expletives in Griffin’s direction, and Blake answered back. Both men were assessed technical fouls.

Here’s video of that sequence:

A few minutes later, Griffin and Trevor Ariza got into a shouting-match and were both issued technicals and ejected. It started when Ariza and Austin Rivers (who was on the bench in street clothes) were chirping at each other and escalated from there when Griffin stepped in.

Here’s video of that confrontation:

After the game Paul, Harden, Ariza and Gerald Green reportedly pushed their way into the Clippers locker room in an attempt to confront Rivers and Griffin. Neither team confirmed what went down but it’s pretty obvious something happened. Security was reportedly called to escort the Rockets players out:

It gets even better because Paul apparently showed the Rockets an alternative entrance to the Clippers locker room through a back hallway. So to sum up: using his knowledge from his days with the Clippers, Paul was helping his new teammates in their attempt to beat up his old teammates. All of this was happening on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Man, 2018 is crazy y’all.

I agree with CBS’ Gary Parish:

Griffin and teammate Patrick Beverley sent out tweets about the craziness later in the night:

I feel confident we’ll all be tuning in when these two teams face off in LA again on February 28.