Getty Image
There are plenty of moments in NBA history that revolve around bad blood that managed to boil over in a big way, but many people seem to have forgotten about the wild night we were treated to when the Warriors and the Trail Blazers faced off in the early 2000s.
It’s hard to imagine the NBA will ever see another game that manages to dwarf the infamy of the Malice at the Palace, but there’s a lengthy list of incidents involving some players who lost their cool in a big way thanks to what transpired on (and near) the hardwood.
For example, there’s Chris Paul and the Rockets supposedly attempting to use a secret tunnel to infiltrate the Clippers locker room to settle a dispute, Vernon Maxwell storming into the stands to clock a fan, and members of Ja Morant’s entourage allegedly shining a laser sight at the Pacers team bus after a game.
There’s also the pretty wild series of events that unfolded when the Golden State Warriors hosted the Portland Trail Blazers for a game on December 20, 2002, which included a dash of all of the elements mentioned in the previous paragraph.
A Warriors player blocked Portland’s team bus with his car to try to fight the Trail Blazers after a heated game
Getty Image
In the early 2000s, the Portland Trail Blazers were dubbed the “Jail Blazers” thanks to a number of off-the-court incidents that led to multiple players making headlines for all of the wrong reasons (like Damon Stoudamire, who was arrested for attempting to use aluminum foil to conceal weed before walking through a metal detector at an airport).
That team was also home to Rasheed Wallace, who’d have a front-row seat to the Malice in the Palace as a member of the Pistons after he was traded to Detroit in 2004. However, he got a taste of what was in store when his squad headed down to Oakland to face off against the Warriors with Christmas on the horizon in 2002.
Wallace emerged as the hero for the Trail Blazers that night, as the two sides were knotted up at 111 in the closing seconds of the fourth quarter when he hit the buzzer-beater that gave his team the two-point victory on the road.
Portland’s Bonzi Wells got pretty physical while attempting to box out Warriors forward Chris Mills before the jumper went in, and tempers flared when the two men found themselves engaged in the shoving match that escalated when Troy Murphy and Ruben Patterson entered the fray and started throwing punches at each other.
The two teams were eventually separated, but things took yet another turn when a fan in the stands threw a wad of gum at Wallace when the Trail Blazers were being escorted to the locker room, which led to four security guards pouncing on the spectator who was handcuffed after some Portland players attempted to go after him.
According to ESPN, Mills was heated to the point where he tried to make his way into the Trail Blazers locker room only to be held back, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.
It seemed like cooler heads had prevailed by the time Portland boarded the bus that was supposed to escort them to the airport for a flight to Seattle ahead of their game with the SuperSonics the following night. However, they were temporarily delayed when Mills blocked its path with his car before jumping out with a few buddies who challenged the players inside to a fight.
The situation wasn’t resolved until the police were called, and they eventually forced Mills to move his vehicle before escorting the bus from the arena.
Mills was quickly hit with a three-game suspension for his actions, while Wells was forced to miss two games for throwing a punch at him and Wallace had to pay a $15,000 fine for going after the fan who sparked the melee near the tunnel.