Tempers began to heat up with less than a minute left in the 3rd quarter after Lakers guard Derrick Fisher laid a vicious body check on Rockets forward Luis Scola, knocking him flat on his back and drawing the attention of the refs and opposing players.  It didn’t end there.  Midway through the 4th quarter, after getting tangled up under the basket, Ron Artest took an elbow to the neck from Kobe Bryant that went undetected.  After letting the official know what he thought, he went over to Kobe to confront him, and was ejected as a result.  Artest continued to try and get at Bryant, but was held back by teammates.

Later in the game, Kobe was also assessed a technical for taunting Shane Battier, whose hard work was not enough to slow down Kobe and his 40 points.  With the series headed to Houston for games 3 and 4, it will be interesting to see if the respective coaches can settle their teams down, or will we witness another feisty affair as the Rockets look to upset the Western Conference favorite Lakers.

Here are the clips of Fisher and Artest’s ejections as well as some post game comments.