Kyle Anderson ready to move on after fight with Rudy Gobert, said reactions to incident are ‘kind of lame’
Rudy Gobert was suspended for 1 game after he punched Kyle Anderson during a timeout Sunday
Kyle Anderson is very over his fight with Rudy Gobert.
In fact, the Minnesota Timberwolves forward thinks that the reaction to what happened between him and Gobert in their regular season finale on Sunday has been “kind of lame.”
“We definitely hashed it out. That happens all the time in sports,” Anderson said Tuesday before their play-in game against the Los Angeles Lakers, via the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Chris Hine.
“I feel like people were acting like they’ve never seen it before. We’re grown men. We’re able to put it behind us. We both want to win. We spoke about it that night and just seeing how everything is playing out is kind of lame, honestly. We’re teammates at the end of the day. I don’t want it to be a Kyle vs. Rudy thing. That’s never the case. I always got my teammates’ back, and we moved on.”
Late in the first half of the Timberwolves’ win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday, Gobert and Kyle Anderson got into it during a timeout. Gobert then suddenly punched Anderson, which led to a much larger scuffle and the two being separated.
The two then yelled at each other some more in the locker room at halftime before the Timberwolves actually sent Gobert home from the arena.
Rudy Gobert and Kyle Anderson had to be separated after a heated altercation in the Timberwolves' huddle 😳pic.twitter.com/LXqgXiozpo
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 9, 2023
That wasn’t the only issue for Minnesota during that game. Forward Jaden McDaniels punched a wall in the tunnel on his way to the locker room at halftime and actually fractured his hand. He is now out indefinitely.
Gobert has since apologized for punching Anderson. The Timberwolves suspended him for their play-in game on Tuesday at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
“Both Rudy and Kyle, they were not proud of what happened on the bench,” Timberwolves president Tim Connelly said Tuesday, via Hine. “They’re actually pretty close. They were embarrassed. Both vets and knew the moment got the best of them.
“Rudy has been great in the wake of that. Obviously he wished he could’ve taken back his actions.”
