Sports
Nate McMillan, Scott Brooks and the infamous NBA brawl that’s a part of JJ Redick’s Lakers
LOS ANGELES — It was one week into his new job as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers when JJ Redick had a sudden rush of horror.
He had just hired his first two assistant coaches, and he couldn’t have been more pleased. Nate McMillan had 19 years of NBA head-coaching experience. And Scott Brooks spent 12 years as an NBA head coach. Both played point guard in the NBA, McMillan for 12 seasons and Brooks for 10. They had a combined 1,281 wins as coaches.
It was the perfect blend of experience, knowledge and credibility that Redick felt he needed beside him as a first-time coach.
But then, the rush of horror: Someone sent him a video.
As Redick watched, his jaw dropped. There on his screen were McMillan and Brooks at each other’s throats during a 1993 playoff game. Their dust-up — McMillan elbowing Brooks in the jaw as he drove baseline, and Brooks launching into McMillan in retaliation — sparked a bench-clearing brawl in the third quarter of Game 5 between McMillan’s Seattle SuperSonics and Brooks’ Houston Rockets.
Both McMillan and Brooks were ejected and later fined.
“I was like, ‘Jesus! How did I not know this?’” Redick remembers saying to himself.
Before Redick had watched the video, he had scheduled a video call with McMillan and Brooks for the next day. He planned to talk plays, philosophy and ask the veteran coaches how they would map out training camp. Now, knowing what he knew about their past, he felt he needed a different opening to the meeting.
“So, I get on the Zoom the next day, and am like, ‘Uh, first off … are you guys OK? Are we good here? Because I was unaware,’” Redick said.
Over the last 31 years, McMillan said he and Brooks never really talked to each other about their confrontation. Even in the immediate wake of the fight, before Game 6, there was no handshake, no apology, no nothing.
And it pretty much stayed that way for three decades.
“We didn’t acknowledge that until we coached against each other,” McMillan said. “And even then, we would just kind of nod at each other and smile. But you know, in the back of your mind it’s … that’s the guy …”
When the two were announced as Redick’s top assistants on July 3, the stalemate was broken. Redick said the two told him they connected on the phone after their hires.
“They worked it out,” Redick said.
Turns out, there wasn’t much to work out. As players, McMillan and Brooks were never the most talented guys on the floor. They had extended careers because they were smart and scrappy. The way each held his ground that day in Seattle could have been any other day in their careers: No backing down, no inch given.
So, after the incident, there was no need to address it. Neither player held a grudge. Neither had regret. It was business as usual.
But all these years later, a funny thing happened once they joined Redick’s staff and got to know each other. McMillan and Brooks found they are linked by more than just their scuffle.
“We’re the same guy,” McMillan said.
By the time Game 5 arrived in the second-round series between Seattle and Houston in 1993, McMillan was on edge.
McMillan and Brooks were backups — McMillan to Gary Payton and Brooks to Kenny Smith — and they were beginning to face off more as the series evolved. Brooks’ minutes increased from nine and seven in the first two games to 21 minutes in Games 3 and 4. That meant Brooks and McMillan often going head-to-head.
“They had (Vernon) Maxwell over there acting crazy and s—, and we were already fired up to play them,” McMillan said. “And then, (Brooks) was out there being a pest, scrapping and clawing for everything … and I just had enough.”
It was a marquee playoff matchup — Houston and Seattle both finished 55-27 and were stacked with stars: The Sonics with a young Payton and Shawn Kemp and Houston with accomplished veterans Hakeem Olajuwon, Otis Thorpe and Smith.
In his seventh NBA season, McMillan was a lanky 6-foot-5 floor general, known for his steady and reliable decisions and dogged defense. Brooks was a pesky, 5-foot-10 jitter bug — a pass-first point guard who took pride in being a nuisance on defense.
The series was tied 2-2, and as Game 5 unfolded, McMillan and Brooks found themselves tangled and locked up with each other on several occasions. In the third quarter, McMillan drove left and tried to lose Brooks on a screen by teammate Derrick McKey. Brooks bounced off McKey and immediately re-engaged with McMillan, touching and bumping him along the way.
“They had been banging pretty good, all game,” referee Bob Delaney told The Athletic. “I thought they would figure it out one way or another.”
They did.
McMillan tried to create space by giving Brooks a nudge with his elbow. As he continued toward the basket, McMillan gave another elbow. All the while, Brooks remained unfazed, still attached to McMillan’s side.
“At that point, it was like … enough is enough,” McMillan said.
McMillan continued driving and rose toward the basket, his elbow catching Brooks flush on the chin. Brooks responded by lunging at McMillan and grabbing his jersey near the armpits. Brooks pushed McMillan into the basket stanchion.
Then, mayhem.
Thorpe threw Kemp to the floor. Players dogpiled under the basket. Sonics coach George Karl was in the middle of it all, spinning and spewing, later admitting he was trying to get Thorpe to punch him so the Rockets forward would get suspended.
Beneath it all was McMillan and Brooks.
“I was trying to get underneath him,” McMillan said. “But he was too small … so we just went to the floor. Someone got put in a chokehold … and we were all on the floor tussling and all that, but no blows were thrown or anything.”
Delaney, the lead official, broke his right pinky while trying to break up the quarrel. To this day, his pinky juts out at an odd angle.
“So, I’m reminded of that game daily,” Delaney said with a chuckle. “And the funny thing is, those are two good, good guys. Great guys. It was just a heat-of-the-battle thing.”
McMillan and Karl were fined $5,000. Brooks was fined $2,000.
The Sonics went on to win Game 5, and later the series after a 103-100 win in Game 7, with the lasting image of a memorable series provided by two backups.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that McMillan and Brooks would find themselves tussling on the court. Brooks, after all, was in seventh grade when his mother drove him to the house of a kid who beat up Brooks. She watched as her son got his revenge on the kids’ front lawn. The lesson: Never get bullied.
McMillan, meanwhile, had his own experience with sticking up for himself. Earlier in his career, he got into it with Maxwell after the Rockets guard undercut him in a game, and he fought with big men Kevin Willis and Mark Bryant.
“Kevin Willis hit me with a cheap shot — a screen — and I tried to take his head off,” McMillan said. “Same thing with Mark Bryant.”
Brooks, who has taken a no-media stance since joining the Lakers, twice declined to be interviewed for this story. It’s not because Brooks harbors ill feelings or regret about the incident.
“We laugh about it all the time now,” McMillan said. “The first thing I saw when they announced they had signed both of us was the video (of the fight). And my daughter (Brittany) was like, ‘Dad!?! What is going on?’ She had never seen that, she didn’t know. And Scotty’s kid and wife said the same thing: ‘What are you guys doing?’”
It didn’t take long for McMillan to discover he and Brooks share something more than a memorable tussle.
“He is the coolest MFer, man,” McMillan said. “I could hang with him.”
McMillan related to Brooks’ backstory — a 10-year NBA career after being undrafted — and he remembered his hard-nosed style of play.
“We both had to come up through this s— the hard way,” McMillan said. “We weren’t scorers; we were hard-hat guys. Glue guys. We had to scrap in order to make it in this league.”
As McMillan spent more time with Brooks, he also became drawn to his knowledge and the way Brooks interacted with people.
“We are very similar,” McMillan said. “We are no-nonsense. Old school. But he is different from me in that he can communicate in a way that I can’t. Like, you look at me, and you don’t know if we are up 40 or down 40. Scotty actually smiles. He actually has a personality. And that makes him great with the staff and the team. Like, I could play for him. Just a great deal of respect for him.”
Scott Brooks (left) and Nate McMillan coached against each other for years after their brawl as players but never acknowledged the dust-up until joining the Lakers staff last summer. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
When Redick was hired in June, the extent of his sideline experience was coaching his son’s third-grade team in Brooklyn. As a result, Redick said he and Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka wanted to hire two former head coaches to assist him.
Redick, a sharpshooter who logged 15 seasons in the NBA, never played for McMillan or Brooks. He said his interaction with McMillan was limited to a 2018 free-agency pitch made by Indiana, when McMillan was the head coach (Redick chose to sign with Philadelphia). However, Redick played a season and a half with New Orleans, where McMillan’s son, Jamelle, was a player development coach.
“I just always felt really comfortable with the person and character of Nate,” Redick said. “And as my name got involved in the coaching stuff, I had a half-dozen people reach out and say, ‘Non-negotiable, you have to hire Scotty Brooks.”
Redick says they have both been “perfect fits” because each can offer a different perspective.
“I call both of them my spiritual gurus,” Redick said. “They are great with the X’s and O’s stuff — our entire staff is — but I think with them, it’s just … they have seen everything having been in the NBA 35-40 years. There are three or four times a week where I’m like, ‘Hey, did I handle that right? How should I handle this … and what did your teams do when they were going through X, Y, Z?’ They have lived it all.”
McMillan, who last coached the Atlanta Hawks in 2023, said the offer to join Redick’s staff was too good to turn down. He said he knew he was done with head coaching after being fired by the Hawks, but the chance to coach LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and to not have to deal with the headaches of being a head coach appealed to him.
“I’m over the first seat. I’m done with that,” McMillan said. “My thing is to assist JJ and give him my thoughts, and whatever he decides, assist him on his decision. I’m not the offensive coach. I’m not the defensive coach. I just kind of chat with everybody, help with game management, and, if he has any questions, tell him what I see.”
One of the first pieces of advice McMillan offered involved James, one of the game’s biggest superstars. He implored Redick to hold firm and believe in his system, believe in his coaching, even if James pushes back.
“One thing I’ve learned as I’ve played and coached in this league is those stars want to be coached, too,” McMillan said. “They want to be coached, and they need to be coached. So, I’m telling JJ here that LeBron, he’s going to question everything … because he’s great. But if you believe what you are doing, it’s OK. It’s that old saying: If we are both agreeing on everything, then s—, we don’t need one of you.’”
JJ Redick hired Brooks (center) and McMillan without realizing their history. “I was like, ‘Jesus! How did I not know this?’’’ Redick remembers saying to himself. (Harry How/Getty Images)
McMillan said Redick has been exceptional in the way he has delivered his message to the Lakers. He said it’s like watching one of the game’s Redick called when he was an announcer for ESPN.
“He’s almost like Hubie (Brown), how when you watch one of his games, he makes you understand it,’’ McMillan said. “He’s doing that for his players. The X’s and O’s, and putting all that together — he has to work on that, and he has (assistant) Greg St. Jean, who is really helping him. All that will come. But his ability to communicate with players, he’s been great. He challenges them all; he coaches them all. And he’s not afraid of LeBron. He respects him, but he says what he thinks and what he wants to say.”
And somewhere down the line this season, Redick says he will hold a special film session with the team. It will be the clip from Game 5 of the 1993 playoffs, when two assistants on the Lakers bench went head-to-head … and beyond.
“At some point, I’m going to show that clip to the team,’’ Redick said. “Just so they can understand who those two f—s are.’’
(Photo illustration: Dan Goldfarb/The Athletic; Getty; Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE, Thearon W. Henderson)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Sports
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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