An elbow from Dwight Howard to Kobe Bryant's chin initiated a scuffle during the fourth quarter of Tuesday's 108-90 win by the Houston Rockets over the Los Angeles Lakers.
The two immediately began trash-talking each other and had to be separated.
"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."
A Lakers source said Bryant repeatedly called Howard "soft."
"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."
Howard refused to go into specifics when asked about the incident by reporters.
"What do y'all want me to say, because I'm not [going] to give y'all nothing," Howard said. "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."
Byron Scott believes Bryant and Howard simply do not like each other, but Bryant disagreed.
"You can't help but like him," Bryant said, smiling. "He's a teddy bear. You can't help but like him. I really meant that. He's a really nice kid. But you know, when you're competing, you have a goal in mind. I know one way to get there. There's certain times when we didn't see eye to eye, but that wasn't one of those situations."