National Basketball Association

Lakers' Anthony Davis, Dwight Howard insist on-court scuffle was no big deal

Updated Oct. 23, 2021 3:43 p.m. ET

By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer

The Los Angeles Lakers' issues have slowly simmered under the surface for weeks.

But on Friday, they boiled over in an ugly public display.

In the Lakers' second regular-season game, Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard got into a heated altercation on the bench during a timeout in the second quarter of L.A.'s matchup with the Phoenix Suns.

It happened with just over three minutes left in the half, when a camera caught Davis standing in front of a seated Howard while the big men exchanged words. When Howard stood up, Davis grabbed his left arm. They were quickly separated by multiple teammates, including LeBron James, Rajon Rondo, Malik Monk and Avery Bradley.

It was undeniably jolting.

The Lakers fell apart at the seams, so much so that they put hands on each other publicly.

This wasn't two players screaming at each other. This wasn't a purported brawl behind closed doors at the practice facility. This was an altercation in front of 19,000 fans at Staples Center and millions more on television.

"It's too much," Lakers coach Frank Vogel acknowledged. "It's too much."

Davis said the melee was over a miscommunication on a pick-and-roll scheme on the defensive end.

"I was saying one thing and he was saying another, and one thing led to another," said Davis, who had 22 points and 14 rebounds in the Lakers' 115-105 loss. "Like I said, we talked about it and we left it in the locker room at halftime."

Howard echoed Davis, chalking up that incident to frustrations that momentarily reached a feverish pitch.

"We squashed it right then and there," Howard said. "We just had a disagreement about something that was on the floor. We're both very passionate about winning."

But their words rang on deaf ears.

No amount of platitudes could mitigate what happened. Howard smiling and cheering for Davis the rest of the game came across as disingenuous at best, desperate at worst.

Howard begged the media not to create a narrative that there are bad feelings between the two players. He knows that wouldn't end well for him.

"It just looked bad but other than that, we have no issues with each other now," Howard said. "I don't want nobody trying to make this into an issue between me and A.D., or I'm trying to cause a problem with the team, because I'm not."

But what happened was disturbing.

Even Magic Johnson weighed in with his disappointment.

"Dwight Howard and A.D. got into a physical altercation on the bench…in my 42 years of being associated with the Lakers organization, I’ve never seen something like that smh," Johnson tweeted.

Tensions erupted as the Suns outscored the Lakers 34-18, taking a 57-44 lead into halftime. Howard was scoreless on 0-for-1 shooting and had three rebounds in nearly nine minutes on the floor. Davis had four points on 1-for-5 shooting and four rebounds.

It makes sense that they were frustrated. They stunk. They should've been upset.

But they were so upset that they needed to be pulled apart? What would have happened if their teammates hadn't intervened?

Making matters worse, that was only one of the incidents that happened that evening.

Rondo appeared to make a gun gesture toward the head of a fan seated courtside in the third quarter. The fan slapped Rondo's hand and was ejected from the game.

Tempers flared everywhere.

The Lakers picked up 26 fouls, including three technical, assessed to Vogel, Kent Bazemore and Davis.

It was a disappointing game on every level for the Lakers, who trailed by as many as 32 points before making a fourth-quarter run to make the game appear less lopsided than it was.

The Lakers are now 0-2, but that's the least of their worries.

Johnson articulated it best.

"The Lakers have a team issue and basketball issue," he tweeted.

The latter problem may be solvable with time, as their superstar cast insists.

The former problem, not necessarily.

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.