The Orlando Magic and the Minnesota Timberwolves squared off against one another tonight in a matchup that no one expected to be as exhilarating as it was. The reasoning behind it being incredibly entertaining isn’t related to the level of play however, rather the fight that ensued between Austin Rivers and Mo Bamba.
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With about 90 seconds left in the 3rd quarter with the Magic up 83-73 on Minnesota, Rivers, who was standing next to the Magic bench, gets into a bout of fisticuffs with Mo Bamba who looked to initiate the fight.
This soon divulged into both teams getting involved in the mix trying to separate the two from one another. 5 players in total were ejected from the game: Austin Rivers, Taurean Prince, Jaden McDaniels, Mo Bamba, and Jalen Suggs. The Magic ended up winning the game 127-120.
Austin Rivers and Mo Bamba have a back-and-forth on Instagram
Not long after the game had ended, Mo Bamba took to his Instagram story to post a screenshot of a graph that showed how if someone ‘f**ked around’, they would ‘find out’. This alludes to him claiming perhaps Austin instigated the quarrel between the two.
Austin Rivers didn’t back down however and put out a haymaker on his story where he claimed the only reason anybody knows him is because of the song titled after him by Sheck Wes that released close to half a decade ago. He would then go on to say that nobody in Orlando likes him as much he thinks they do.
It’s clear that there will be fines and suspensions levied to a litany of players for what transpired tonight. It’s only a matter of when and how much they will be fined and how many games they would be looking to miss.
Austin Rivers in his postgame presser
Timberwolves head coach, Chris Finch, was quite furious what had happened, saying it was ‘egregious’ that a guy had come off the bench to go punch one of his players.
Rivers, during his postgame media availability, stated he didn’t like the way Bamba was talking to him, considering the fact that he doesn’t know him on a personal level in the slightest. He would then say that he felt like he let the team down as 2 other Wolves got ejected, leading to the 7-point loss.
