Montrezl Harrell And Kentavious Caldwell-Pope Apparently Threw Punches At Each Other During Halftime Because KCP Didn't Pass The Ball

[The Athletic] - Washington Wizards guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and center Montrezl Harrell got into a physical altercation at halftime of Tuesday night’s home win over the Oklahoma City Thunder and their tussle needed to be separated by teammates, sources tell The Athletic.

Sources said Harrell became upset with Caldwell-Pope for not passing him the basketball on a play before the first half concluded, and the two started jawing during the walk to the locker room. As the two exchanged words, Harrell and Caldwell-Pope took swings toward each other — with neither connecting — and became entangled before teammates separated them, sources said.

Classic teammate behavior. Don't believe me, just look at Montrezl Harrell's response: 

Heated discussion. That's it! Shame on Shams for trying to get more information. Now I actually understand where Montrezl is coming from. There's nothing worse than being wide open and not getting the ball. Granted that tends to happen more in pickup than NBA, the man deemed he was open. Hey, I know the Wizards are playing well, but also this had to happen with the Wizards. A fight between teammates in a locker room is probably what the Wizards are know the most for besides having arguably the worst name in the NBA. 

Let's not lie here either. Does part of me want to blame LeBron? Of course. They were teammates with him in Los Angeles. We all know that LeBron doesn't fight but passive aggressively gets mad at teammates by trading them away. Hell he traded these two for Russ. There might be some animosity there. I'm just throwing the idea out, not claiming it. 

And fine I'll address the other part. I go to bat for basketball guys as much as possible. I'm a basketball guy. But extra security because teammates got into a scuffle with missed punches like a Rough n Rowdy fight? Come on. We need to shed the label of being soft, fellas. You can't call in extra security. Let them fight it out and make up like most guys. Every guy has at least gotten into a scuffle, maybe even a brouhaha with a friend. It's bound to happen. You release the anger, maybe throw a punch or a shove, then 12 hours later you have a beer together and all is cool. Maybe even earlier. There's never extra security. Maybe a third friend standing there like hey just punch each other and get it over with so we can go to the bar. We need that with the NBA now. 

At least the Wizards won? Maybe it worked.