Whether it was because of Christian Wood’s comments or the way the Western Conference semifinals ended, the competitive juices were flowing for both the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets when they faced off at the Toyota Center on Sunday. However, when the competition is high, so are the emotions, and we saw that too.
In the first quarter of Sunday’s game, Morris was ejected for angrily reacting to a hard foul by DeMarcus Cousins. Morris played 2:25.
Markieff Morris and Boogie got into it. pic.twitter.com/efgRrnMbLZ
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 11, 2021
In the video, it seems as though Cousins took issue with Morris putting his shoulder into the chest of rookie Jae’Sean Tate, so he retaliated by doing the same to Morris. However, there’s reason to believe there was more to it than just that.
In February of last year, after the NBA trade deadline, the Lakers waived Cousins to sign Markieff Morris, who was waived by the Detroit Pistons earlier that month. While there didn’t seem to be any hard feelings between the two players at the time, that may have been because they didn’t have to play against each other until Sunday.
A reminder that their names may be on the same championship ring, but Boogie and Kieff were never teammates.
— Sabreena Merchant (@sabreenajm) January 11, 2021
When Kieff realizes he’s the reason he can’t tell Boogie he’s not a champion: pic.twitter.com/BRYUGVqWMO
— Silver Screen & Roll (@LakersSBN) January 11, 2021
Cousins wasn’t ejected for his hard foul on Morris, but he was ejected later in the game for a flagrant 2 on LeBron James. Suffice to say, the referee had no problem using his power on Sunday.
DeMarcus Cousins now ejected too for a Flagrant 2 foul on LeBron James.
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) January 11, 2021
Boogie and Markieff Morris are both out of the game.pic.twitter.com/ndF1H4afUT
The Lakers will play the Rockets again on Tuesday. Hopefully both players will have put their feelings aside by then. Otherwise Tuesday’s game could be interesting for all of the wrong reasons.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow this author on Twitter at @RadRivas.