The Thunder and Wizards took the court on Saturday for what was billed as a relatively sleepy weekend affair between the best team in the NBA and one of the worst. But late in the second quarter, Ajay Mitchell and Justin Champagnie provided serious fireworks.
The tomfoolery began with fewer than 30 seconds remaining in the first half. After an Oklahoma City bucket, center Jaylin Williams got into a small shoving match with Champagnie as the latter tried to grab the basketball to inbound it. Washington wing Bilal Coulibaly walked over to try to defuse the situation, but Mitchell took offense to the encroachment on his teammate’s space and gave Champagnie a hearty shove of his own after walking over. In the process of doing so Champagnie appeared to hit Mitchell in the face, and everything blew up from there.
