Photo by Josh Knowles
The Phoenix Suns suffered a bad loss last night when they were defeated by the Houston Rockets with a final score of 94-82.
It was a tough night for them after scoring a season low 82 points and shooting just 37.6 percent from the field.
The game was pretty close until the third quarter when the Rockets outscored the Suns 30-18. With 27 seconds left in the 3rd quarter an altercation broke out between Rafer Alston and Suns’ forward Matt Barnes.
On a play before the shoving match, Tracy McGrady set a hard screen on Steve Nash where it appeared that Nash had hurt his shoulder. Then on the following Rockets possession, Alston tried to set a screen on Matt Barnes, which Barnes ran through and bumped Alston about 5 feet from where he was originally positioned. Alston then ran down the court and approached Barnes.
The two began to get into a shoving match and teammates jumped in, some as peacemakers, others as contributors to the altercation. McGrady pushed Steve Nash and Shaq countered by pushing Tracy to the floor.
“I tried to get through a screen and I guess I was too rough for him, so he tried to retaliate, and you know just a bunch of pushing. I didn’t really think anyone should have got thrown out, (because) there was no punches thrown. But the refs did what they thought was necessary,” said Barnes after the game.
Good thing Amare Stoudemire and Ron Artest weren’t in the game.
