Sophia Michaels
Over the last few years, games between the Golden State Warriors and the Houston Rockets have usually been some of the most hotly-contested in the league, as the latter served as the biggest thorn in the former’s side out West during their runs to the NBA Finals. That hasn’t quite been the case this year, but at the very least, we got a little spiciness on Thursday night.
Houston waxed Golden State, 135-105, and when the game was already in hand in the fourth quarter, Russell Westbrook found himself near the Warriors’ bench. While there, he did a whole lot of jawing with the injured Klay Thompson — who appeared to be extremely unbothered by the whole thing — then got a little testy with some opposing players and, eventually, got tossed.
Westbrook explained what happened after the game, saying that it stemmed from a situation where things got unintentionally physical with Damion Lee, some Warriors player started prodding with him, and eventually, he got the boot.
“But I got to do a better job of holding myself accountable to a very, very high standard,” Westbrook said, per Nick Friedell of ESPN. “And I’ll make sure I leave no room for error to allow somebody and people paint me out to be a guy that I’m not. I just think it’s unfair that after all that, I’m the only one that gets a tech or kicked out. That’s not fair. I don’t care what nobody says. It’s so many other people involved in it that are doing so many things that weren’t OK, but I’m the one that gets the tech, gets ejected, and then everybody else is cool, and goes back and play. But like I said, I take responsibility for that and I hold myself to a very high standard of which I’ll uphold.”
Because he received two technicals on Thursday, Westbrook now sits at 13 on the year. At 16, he’ll get suspended for a game. Ejection aside, Westbrook did have a good evening, scoring 21 points on 10-for-19 shooting with 10 assists and five rebounds in 30 minutes of action.
Written by: Uproxx
