Moses brushes off ‘short-sighted’ critics of odd Pezet deal<\/a><\/p>\nDuren had the ball and was driving toward the basket with just over seven minutes left in the third period when he was fouled by Diabate.<\/p>\n
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Moussa Diabate fights Jalen Duren.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n
The two appeared to butt heads after coming together, before Duren hit Diabate in the face with his open right hand, starting a confrontation that lasted more than 30 seconds and ultimately ended with a brief police presence on the floor.<\/p>\n
Tobias Harris was holding Diabate back, but he threw a punch at Duren. Duren walked away and Bridges charged at him, throwing a left-handed punch. Duren retaliated with a punch. Diabate attempted to charge again at Duren and had to be held back.<\/p>\n
Stewart then left the bench to confront Bridges, who responded with a punch, and the players tussled, before Stewart got Bridges in a headlock and delivered multiple left-handed blows to his head during the scuffle.<\/p>\n
Duren called it an “overly competitive game.”<\/p>\n
\u201cEmotions were flaring,\u201d Duren said. \u201cAt the end of the day, we would love to keep it basketball, but things happen. Everybody was just playing hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Hornets and Pistons players are separated. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n
Duren said that opposing NBA teams have been trying to \u201cget in our head\u201d all season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn’t the first time that people have tried to be like extra aggressive with us and talk to us, whatever the case may be,\u201d Duren said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as a group we have done an OK job of handling that energy and intensity. At the end of the day, emotions got high with everybody being competitive. Things happen.”<\/p>\n
Duren did not say how the fight started, referring reporters instead to the video replays.<\/p>\n
Charlotte did not make Bridges and Diabate available for interviews after the game – however, Bridges took to Instagram to apologise.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry Hornets nation! Always gonna protect my teammates forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tensions continued to mount at the Spectrum Center after the fight.<\/p>\n
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CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – FEBRUARY 09: Charles Lee of the Charlotte Hornets is held back by Brandon Miller #24 while reacting to a call made by referee John Goble #10 during the second half of a basketball game against the Detroit Pistons at Spectrum Center on February 09, 2026 in Charlotte, North Carolina. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n
Midway through the fourth quarter, coach Lee was ejected and had to be restrained by Hornets guard Brandon Miller while yelling at officials for a no-call after Charlotte’s Grant Williams collided with Detroit\u2019s Paul Reed.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrant was walking down the paint and barely touched somebody and the guy fell over and that is what we are going to call a foul,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a hard job to make these calls, but I don’t think that was the consistency with which that had been called the rest of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for being ejected, Lee said he has to have more control of emotions moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four players were ejected after a wild brawl broke out during an NBA clash between the Detroit Pistons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-470436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}