The Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics got into a brawl just before halftime in Wednesday’s Nets victory in Boston. It started with Kris Humphries knocking down Kevin Garnett with an innocent foul, escalated when Rajon Rondo pushed Hump, and then ended with Rondo, Garnett, and Gerald Wallace (who already had a technical) getting ejected. Here are player, coach, and referee reactions to the brawl via The Brooklyn Game.
EVANS: “He fouled, and Hump respected the foul. He didn’t argue with the foul. He turned around, and all of a sudden, somebody’s in his face. It’s like a mosquito in your face. You’re eventually going to swat at the mosquito, right? If you let the mosquito in your face, you’re going to end up with bumps all over your face, so you have to swat the mosquito down.
“Hump ain’t the type of person who’s going to over bully a little guard. For what? Where I come from, you beat up a little boy, you don’t get no points for that. He didn’t do that. So quite naturally when somebody comes at you, it’s not necessary to fight them, but you have to defend yourself.”
DWILL: “It wasn’t a bad foul. KG fell hard, but he didn’t push him out of the play or anything. We won’t back down from anybody. We did a good job keeping our composure making a run in the second half to sustain, keep our focus mentally.”
JOHNSON: “I just saw a little scuffle, that’s all I saw from the bench. … We were in a situation where he had our brother out there battling and he had to protect himself. From that aspect, like I said it’s pretty understandable. We’re not a team that’s gonna be pushed around or back down from anybody. I was proud of our guys tonight and the way we fought.”
STACKHOUSE: “It’s always a little surprising to see anything like that. With the money guys make now, knowing the hit you can take from losing a couple days pay. Even on my little minimum, I sit my butt down. I didn’t even flinch. But it’s part of the game. There’s a lot of pride on both sides, we’re not going to back down. We’re a team that’s trying to establish identity … We feel good about it, even though we don’t know what the repercussions will be, but we feel good about what happens. Something goes down with one of our guys, the guys on the court will take care of it.”
BLATCHE: “That’s what family and brotherhood is all about. That was probably the biggest thing I’ve seen so far. We all had each other’s backs out there on the court. … I’m not surprised at all. When that happened, I saw Rondo going at Hump, I knew everybody was about to have his back.”
AVERY: “First, nobody left the bench. Guys were protecting their teammates. And our guys, we play pretty hard in practice so a lot of what you see on the court is a product of what I see everyday.
“Not really (worried about suspensions). I think everything… they tossed the guys, I think they’ll take a look at it. We’ll probably get an idea on what’s going on tomorrow.”
REFEREE JAMES CAPERS: “Rondo initiated everything that proceeded after the foul. And when he and Humphries go into the stands, they are involved in a fight. Fighting is an automatic ejection.
“When Kevin goes to the basket, he is re-routed by Humphries. So we had a personal foul for the re-route. Kevin is trying to continue — to get a continuation by shooting – and now Humphries hits him. Because the whistle blew, it was a dead-ball situation, and that’s a technical foul for contact during a dead ball. … What proceeds after that is a fight, so he’s ejected.”
Kris Humphries didn’t speak to the media after the game, but later on he tweeted this.
