As was expected when Markieff Morris was ejected from Sunday’s matchup between the Lakers and the Houston Rockets for getting into it with DeMarcus Cousins, the NBA has fined both veterans for their role in the brouhaha.
The league announced the fines (and the reasoning for them) in a statement on Tuesday:
Los Angeles Lakers forward Markieff Morris has been fined $35,000 and Houston Rockets center DeMarcus Cousins has been fined $10,000 for their roles in an on-court altercation, it was announced today by Kiki VanDeWeghe, Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations.
The incident, which occurred with 2:15 remaining in the first quarter of the Lakers’ 120-102 victory over the Rockets on Jan. 10 at Toyota Center, began when Morris committed a Flagrant Foul 1 by knocking Rockets forward Jae’Sean Tate to the ground.
Cousins continued the incident by shoving Morris to the floor, for which Cousins was assessed a technical foul. Morris further escalated the situation by charging after Cousins, shoving him and continuing to aggressively pursue him. Morris was assessed a technical foul and ejected.
Here is video of the fracas, if you missed it and want to see for yourself:
Markieff Morris and Boogie got into it. pic.twitter.com/efgRrnMbLZ
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 11, 2021
That both were fined, and proportionality of those fines, is fairly unexpected. Morris likely knew he was costing himself some cash when he charged after Cousins, just like Cousins probably knew the same when he stood up for Tate. It’s hard to get too worked up about this stuff, it just happens in competitive basketball games, and Morris and Cousins are as hard-nosed of competitors as they come. It isn’t their first scuffle and it won’t be their last. What Morris did to keep it going was worse, and he deserved to get docked more than Cousins, who also messed up.
For everyone who loves drama, the bad news is that Anthony Davis said on Sunday that Morris and Cousins — the former of whom replaced the latter on the Lakers’ roster last year — have already squashed the beef:
Anthony Davis said everyone was happy to see DeMarcus Cousins back on the floor (even Markieff Morris said it at one point). Davis said he thinks Boogie and Markieff quashed it after the fact pretty quickly. "I love to see him back on the floor playing the game that he loves."
— Kyle Goon (@kylegoon) January 11, 2021
We’ll see if that’s actually true when the Lakers face the Rockets again tonight. The bell rings ball tips at 5:00 p.m. PT.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.