Rafer Alston Says a Matt Barnes 'Cheap Shot' Led to Fight Between the Suns and Rockets

Earlier I gave you the play-by-play of the altercation that went down Wednesday night between the Suns and the Rockets. I call it a "brawl" or a "fight" for the purpose of sensationalizing the headline as much as possible, but when all was said and done, no punches were thrown and no players left the benches, so it was really just a prolonged shoving match.

You can watch it here if you like, but basically, Matt Barnes tried to go through a Rafer Alston screen -- literally -- which didn't sit well with Alston, who confronted Barnes before their teammates got involved and all hell broke loose. After the game, Matt Barnes talked about what happened and why he got things started by making sure he fought extra-hard through that screen.

"I tried to get through a screen, and I guess I was too rough for him, so he tried to retaliate," Barnes said. "It was just a bunch of pushing, I didn't think anyone should have gotten thrown out because there were no punches thrown. But the refs did what they thought was necessary."

When asked if that might have been retaliation for a hard screen the Rockets gave to Steve Nash, Barnes didn't say anything that would contradict that assertion.

"Yeah, they hit us with a couple of hard screens, so... they're not going to screen me hard, so I ran through a screen, and he didn't like it," Barnes said. "You always gotta kind of watch out for your team, especially for your star point guard. They hit Steve with a hard screen, they hit me earlier with a hard screen, so I just tried to run through his screen. I mean, the refs didn't call a foul on me initially."

When Nash was told that Barnes was basically sticking up for him, he smiled and said, "Matt's a good teammate."

I asked Barnes if he thought that maybe Alston overreacted to the initial play; he wasn't sure.

"I don't really know what he was thinking, he thinks he's tough so ... I don't know really. He ran up on me, and, it was really just a bunch of pushes. No one threw any punches, no one did anything serious. But the refs had to get control of the game so they figured throwing us out would do that."

And did Barnes feel that his actions warranted the two immediate technicals and the ejection? Predictably, he did not.

"No, I definitely didn't. I thought you had to throw a punch to get kicked out of a game, really. All I did was push him, and he pushed me, I mean, T-Mac pushed Steve all the way to the ground and didn't get thrown out of the game, so ..."

So Barnes basically admitted that he gave a little shot to Alston as retaliation for some hard screens earlier in the game. But Alston didn't seem aware of any earlier screens, and felt he was straight-up cheap-shotted by Barnes.

"He just took a cheap shot at me, Alston said. "If you look at the replay, the ref is standing there watching it. It was a dirty play, he raised his arm. Good thing he didn't connect an knock my teeth out. I was just setting a screen, we were trying to get two for one ... I don't know if he was frustrated by his game or their game or or whatever was going on, but there was no call for that. There was no call for my reaction really but sometimes, when someone goes at you like that, you just react."

It looks like the two main participants here both had their reasons for doing what they did, but the bottom line is, not much actually happened besides a couple of players getting shoved to the ground. Still, the league doesn't usually react well to altercations that involve multiple members of both teams (and that are shown on an endless loop all night long on a certain four-letter network). So, even though this wasn't a brawl by definition because there were no punches thrown, I think we'd all be pretty surprised if no one were to end up getting suspended over it.