Five players were ejected after a wild brawl during the Magic’s 127-120 win over the Timberwolves Friday night in Minnesota
Orlando big man Mo Bamba and Minnesota guard Austin Rivers exchanged punches during a third-quarter melee before other players rushed in and got involved. Referees eventually broke up the two sides. Bamba and Rivers were ejected as well as the Timberwolves’ Taurean Prince and Jaden McDaniels and the Magic’s Jalen Suggs.
“This isn’t like a cool moment for me,” Rivers said after the game. “I feel embarrassed. I’m the oldest on the team. I consider myself the leader of the team, or one of the leaders of the team. It was a weird game, and I don’t think that helped at all. If anything right now, I’m just (ticked off) that we lost, and that I had (something) to do with that. It doesn’t make me feel good.”
Bamba and Suggs were not available for comment after the game.
The fight began with Rivers right in front of the Magic bench as play was ongoing at the far end of the court. Bamba came off the bench and Rivers threw punches at him. Suggs later pulled Rivers away and swung him to the court. McDaniels and Prince joined the scrum.
“Their guy came off the bench and threw a punch,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said. “Pretty egregious. Then it’s a melee, and somehow our guys get punished a lot worse. One guy got sent for not being a peacekeeper. I just looked at the film, and I didn’t see any difference between what their guys were doing and what our guys were doing.”
The Magic held an 83-73 lead at the time, and the game was temporarily delayed to sort through the ejections.
If this were an actual boxing match, the 6-foot-4, 200-pound Rivers, the 7-foot, 231-pound Bamba would have had a distinct physical advantage in every way as well as being in a different weight class.
The altercation seemed to stem from talk from the Magic bench, particularly Bamba. A few moments earlier, Rivers missed a 3-point attempt in front of the Orlando bench, and Bamba and Markelle Fultz could be seen reacting to the miss.
Rivers said he approached Bamba about his comments.
“I’m not gonna snitch on the dude or whatever, but I just didn’t like the way he was talking to me,” Rivers said. “For no reason, too. I don’t even know that dude. I don’t know anything about him. Obviously, I just know he’s a player for the Magic. And he proceeded to talk, so that next possession, when I went down there, I just said, pretty much, ‘Just keep it respectful, bro.’”
Rivers later added: “I went up to him and I pressed him, and at that point, it can go one of two ways. I didn’t think we were going to get in a fight. But when you stand up that fast and put your hands up — he threw a punch and missed, thankfully. At that point, I’ve got to protect myself. Ain’t no one worried about him.”
This wasn’t the first time these two teams have brawled. Five years ago, the two sides engaged in a similar melee, when Arron Affalo and Nemanja Bjelica traded punches in 2018.
— with AP
