The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

came in the second quarter, near the end of a 16-0 Houston run that broke a 37-37 tie. Harden doubled
over after running head-first into the 7ft, 260lbs Bogut’s shoulder.
“If you watch the replay, yeah, he made no effort to run around my screen,” said Bogut, who had a
couple of sharp verbal exchanges with Harden. “Yeah, it was a hard screen and I set hard screens.
But to get a flagrant for it is kind of head-scratching.
“You admire the effort the league’s putting in in Secaucus [New Jersey] with that beautiful facility
where they watch replays and watch TV and have leather chairs and all that kind of stuff. But you
scratch your head at a lot of these things and it becomes very, very frustrating.”
Trevor Ariza was ejected after his second technical during the break after the third quarter, when five
technicals were called. After the game, he was waiting outside the Dallas locker room for Mavericks
center Salah Mejri. Security had to make sure the pair didn’t interact after an exchange during the
game that led to Ariza’s first technical. Houston was called for five and Dallas three. According to
ESPN, the tension between the two escalated when Mejri insulted Ariza’s wife and children during
the game. Mejri denied that accusation: “He was swearing and bullshit,” Mejri said. “Ask him. He’s
out there. Ask him.”
“It wasn’t even basketball,” Dallas guard Wesley Matthews said. “Tempers, two in-state teams, we
play each other four times, we’ve had battles in the past, so it is what it is. But we’ve got to be better
than that. That was an opportunity for us to channel it into basketball and we didn’t do that.”
Harden had 24 points at halftime and finished with 11 assists without playing in the fourth quarter.
The Rockets improved to 13-2 in December.
With two games left in the month, Houston can tie the franchise record of 15 wins from November
1996.
Harrison Barnes scored 21 for the last-place Mavericks, who lost their second straight following
their first two-game winning streak of the season.
There were also two flagrant fouls, both against Dallas.
Most of the technicals came during dead-ball situations, with players and Dallas coach Rick Carlisle
complaining to officials. Carlisle mockingly clapped at the refs, saying “good call,” after he was
whistled for one.
“They tried to defend by being real physical and thinking that’s the way to do it,” Houston coach Mike
D’Antoni said. “I don’t really want to get into it just because it doesn’t serve any purpose. We needed
the win. We came out and we took care of business.”
This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/dec/28/houston-rockets-dallasmavericks-nba
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