Dwight Howard Elbows Kobe Bryant, Heated Exchange Follows

The Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets opened up their 2014-2015 NBA season last night, which means that former Laker teammates Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard would go head-to-head.

Howard, who left Los Angeles last summer and headed to Houston, hasn’t had a lot of pleasant things to say about Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers organization.

With 7:07 left in the fourth quarter of last night’s Rockets vs. Lakers match-up, Dwight Howard grabbed a rebound and Bryant immediately got in Howard’s face. Howard began to throw elbows trying to get Bryant to back off, one of which connected with Bryant’s chin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhP94RoSMi8

When Howard’s elbow connected with Bryant’s face, a flagrant foul was called on Howard, a personal foul was called on Bryant, and both Bryant and Howard were given technical fouls.

“He elbowed me in the face, and I’m gonna let him know, I don’t like that,” Bryant said after the game. “It’s that simple.”

“It’s fantastic,” Bryant said. “That’s the game. That’s all part of the game. Elbows are a part of the game. Trash-talking is part of the game. I don’t know where the NBA became so sensitive. It’s all part of it.”

Bryant also claimed that the back-and-forth with Howard was all due to the heat of the moment and that he was just being competitive with Howard.

“He’s a teddy bear. You can’t help but like him. I really meant that. But you know, when you’re competing, you have a goal in mind. I know one way to get there.”

Contrary to what Bryant said, new Lakers head coach Byron Scott said “They don’t like each other, simple as that.”

Scott also added that the reason that Bryant and Howard don’t like each other is because when Howard was playing with Bryant he wasn’t driven and focused on winning a championship like Bryant was.

When Howard was asked to go into specifics of the confrontation with Bryant, he refused to talk about it in detail.

“What do y’all want me to say, because I’m not going to give y’all nothing. It’s stupid. We won the game. It’s over with. I mean, there’s no need to go into it. We won the game. It’s about basketball. I mean it’s over with. It’s nothing. I’m not even focused on it.”

Like Howard said, the Rockets defeated his former team as they rolled to a 108-90 victory over the Lakers.

Howard finished with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 1 block while Bryant finished with 19 points in 29 minutes in his return to NBA action.

[Image via New York Daily News]