Thomas Byrant And Jose Alvarado Exchanged Punches And We Were Very Close To Having Another Malice At The Palace Situation Down In New Orleans

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HOLY SHIT.

That's the first thing that came to my mind when this all unfolded. It all happened so fast and was such a cluster fuck in real time, it's hard to see what even really happened. Once you slow it down and watch it a few times, you can see that on the sideline Thomas Byrant and Jose Alvarado are having themselves quite a tussle and by quite a tussle don't mean a typical NBA  "HOLDDDD MMEEE BAAACKK" type of ordeal. I'm talking about real punches being thrown. 

Why Thomas Bryant and Jose Alvarado are fighting is anyone's guess, and there's a bit of a size advantage there so on one hand credit to Alvarado for standing tough. Not the best look for Thomas Bryant given the size difference, and really it's just basketball man, no need to go throwing haymakers in a random game in late February. I will say that is classic Heat Culture right there though. We already had Duncan Robinson doing his thing earlier in the night

so I can't say that's much of a surprise. Sooner or later something was going to happen, and the beauty of this fight is that's only half the story. We also that this fella right here who was ready to go all Malice At The Palace 2.0. I mean tossing the beer is essentially what set off Ron Artest in the first place, and this dude chucks that shit as far as he possibly could

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Very underrated moment of that clip was that guy's complete shock as to why he was getting thrown out. Could it possibly be for whatever he threw that forced him to fall backwards into his seat? It's hard to say really. He 10000% thought nobody was looking because of the fight and he went for it. For it to immediately backfire that way is unfortunate, but also why you don't throw shit at NBA players, even if there's a fight. 

Separately, what's with all the punching in the face this year? Draymond punching people in games, Isaiah Stewart punching people before games, and now this. I get the playoffs are around the corner and the pressure is starting to mount, but everyone just needs to chill out a little. 

I'm sure we'll see both guys suspended for a few games and fined a decent chunk and that will be that. This isn't the first little dust up we've had and it certainly won't be the last. And hey, it could have always been worse had a fan gotten involved so that's a win.

The good news for the Heat is that they ended up winning this game and are still within 0.5 games of the Pacers for the 6th spot in the East, so at the end of the day they leave NO with what they hoped for, which was a much needed win.