The Memphis Grizzlies are a young team built around just a few players, two being guard O.J. Mayo and small forward Rudy Gay. Last season there were rumblings of some disagreements between the two players. Nothing too serious, though. But yesterday the two guys tossed some heated words at each other.
Ronald Tillery of the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports:
The scoreboard wasn’t all that provided fireworks in what turned out to be a shootout Sunday night between the Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets.
The Grizzlies had to douse an explosive shouting match between O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay on their bench before the end of a 133-123 loss in a wildly entertaining affair at the Pepsi Center.
Mayo tossed in a career-high 40 points only to have the performance overshadowed by Nuggets’ forward Carmelo Anthony’s 42-point outburst, and somewhat marred by an incident during a late fourth-quarter timeout.
The Commercial Appeal continues:
“We’re both competitors. We just felt that defensively we weren’t communicating,” Mayo said. “Our energy was going down and we said some things. But we got it situated, and continued to play the game.”
Gay said the incident was “nothing” and his hope is that people won’t blow it out of proportion because of rumors he didn’t get along with Mayo from last season.
“It’s not what people think it was,” Gay said. “Me and O.J. were together all summer. We’re fine.”
It’s probably nothing. Competitive players are prone to get annoyed at their teammates once in a while, whether they’re buddies or not. Now, if they start punching each other in the face some day, that’s something. Still, we’ll keep an eye on this.
