Robin Lopez and Serge Ibaka gave us worst NBA fight in 10 years, but it could have been worse

Robin Lopez and Serge Ibaka gave us worst NBA fight in 10 years, but it could have been worse

Robin Lopez and Serge Ibaka gave us worst NBA fight in 10 years, but it could have been worse
NBA

Robin Lopez and Serge Ibaka gave us worst NBA fight in 10 years, but it could have been worse

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Neither big man connected with their punches, and the only fallout will be suspensions.

With several legitimate punches thrown at each other’s faces, Robin Lopez and Serge Ibaka combined for the most significant fight we’ve seen in the NBA in more than a decade. Still, it could have been a lot worse.

Ibaka instigated the fight by elbowing Lopez in the back, which caused Lopez to react aggressively. He shoved Ibaka and tried to slap the ball out of his hand, as their teammates rallied around them. Here’s the video, including an inconvenient camera cut to Jimmy Butler right as the action heats up.

The Lopez punch appears to miss completely. Ibaka avoids it with a combination of being pushed back and ducking out of the way, as you can see here.

Ibaka’s punch gets closer. It looks like he grazed the side of Lopez’s head, but definitely didn’t make direct contact.

Neither punch had the power of a boxer throwing a knockout blow — they were reaching over teammates and being held back. But can you imagine the fallout if either punch had connected? That’s a bloody nose, or worse. If any bones break, that makes things really bad. We’ve seen sports figures punch each other without any lasting damage, and maybe both players escape with a sore jaw. But you never know.

Fortunately, we avoided the worst-case scenario: there will be no repeat of Kermit Washington shortening Rudy Tomjanovich’s career. Both Ibaka and Lopez can expect suspensions of multiple games. How many games is hard to predict, though, because there’s no recent precedent of multiple punches being thrown in a game like this.

The last fight had to be the infamous brawl between the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets in 2006, which led to the league coming down on fighting with a sledgehammer. Since then, in part to the harsh penalties stemming from that fight, NBA players rarely do anything more than scuffling. There are shoves and words, but the worst suspension since 2006 for an on-court incident was Metta World Peace’s seven-game suspension for elbowing James Harden.

The NBA is entertaining without fighting, and we’re lucky to have gone so long without players seriously going after each other during a game. While it happened Tuesday, it’s good the worst was avoided.