When the Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors next battle their respective opponents they will be without the services of two of their toughest, some might say “too-toughest,” big men.

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Robin Lopez and Serge Ibaka were “suspended without pay for one game for throwing punches at one another,” the NBA announced on Wednesday afternoon, knocking Lopez out of Chicago’s Wednesday night tilt with the Detroit Pistons, and Ibaka out for Thursday’s match in Miami.

The Bulls have yet to play without their starting center this year, a dicey proposition with reserve Cristiano Felicio likely out with a back injury following a fall against the Raptors, while Toronto will likely slot Patrick Patterson back into the starting lineup while going small in ways that remind of the team’s rotations prior to the trade that brought Ibaka to Toronto.

Bulls forward Nikola Mirotic and Raptors assistant coach Jamaal Magliore were also fined $15,000 each for “acting as other than a peacemaker as part of the same altercation.”

How, exactly, did the altercation go down?

One night after the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder engaged in a pretty standard brand of NBA pushing/shoving/non-fisticuffs, there were honest-to-goodness punches thrown with real-deal malice behind them in Toronto on Tuesday, when Lopez and Ibaka got heated enough to throw hands late in the third quarter.

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With the Bulls continuing their somewhat mystifying mastery over the Raptors, All-Star shooting guard Jimmy Butler splashed through a 3-pointer to increase the Bulls’ lead to 16 points, 88-72. As the ball went through the hoop, Raptors shooting guard DeMar DeRozan bumped Lopez backward into Ibaka. The Congolese big man didn’t appreciate that, and gave Lopez a shove in the lower back.

Lopez really didn’t appreciate that, slapping hard at the ball in Ibaka’s left hand and getting right in Serge’s face. They quickly squared off and grabbed a hold of one another, with Lopez firing off a pretty legitimate-looking right hand at Ibaka’s head, and just barely missing.

“It seemed like I had three guys on me and I was being pulled back,” Lopez said after the game, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. “And I’m not sure what was going on with him. But it felt like nobody had any hold on him. He just kept coming at me with his arm. I was just trying to get him off me.”

Ibaka returned fire with a right of his own, but similarly appeared to just graze the side of Lopez’s head.

“That thing happened where you just start to push each other, like always happens when there’s contact, and then he throws a punch,” Ibaka said after the game, according to Doug Smith of the Toronto Star. “You know, like a man, I had to defend myself. I’m not just going to be out there and watch a man like him punch me and just walk away. I had to defend myself. So that’s what happened.”

Players from both teams and the refs raced to the scene, with DeRozan pulling Ibaka back and to the ground, while Raptors swingman Norman Powell helped get Lopez clear of the fray. Ibaka quickly returned to his feet and began to make his way back toward Lopez, only to be grabbed by teammate P.J. Tucker and ridden all the way back into the backcourt, and out of harm’s way.

The refs convened and, without much need for deliberation, promptly ejected both Ibaka and Lopez. Ibaka finished with 16 points on 7-for-13 shooting with six rebounds and one assist in 26 minutes, while Lopez logged 12 points on 5-for-8 shooting, four rebounds, three blocks and one assist in 24 1/2 minutes. Chicago forward Nikola Mirotic and Raptors assistant coach Jamaal Magloire also briefly tangled in the scuffle, and received technicals for their troubles prior to Wednesday’s hit to the wallet.

While neither player squarely connected with his right-hand shot — and, given that we’re talking about very, very big and very, very strong men, thank goodness for that — they only received suspensions of at least one game (and no fine) from the league office for hauling off.

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The fracas seemed to ignite the Raptors, who outscored Chicago 50-32 after the ejections of Lopez and Ibaka, coming back from a 15-point deficit to score a 122-120 win behind a game-high 42 points from DeRozan.

Going forward, the absences of two starting big men could have serious repercussions for Chicago and Toronto.

After falling to 33-38 on Tuesday, two games out of the East’s No. 8 seed, the 10th-place Bulls will head home on Wednesday to take on the Detroit Pistons, who dropped to ninth after a brutal Tuesday loss to the league-worst Brooklyn Nets on a buzzer-beating game-winner by center Brook Lopez, the twin brother of the pugilistic pivot whose ejection for brawling helped spark Toronto’s comeback.

After his game-winner, Brook Lopez was asked about his brother’s skirmish. True to form for the chop-busting brother, he said his money was on the other guy:

The Raptors, meanwhile, get Wednesday off before traveling to Florida to take on the Miami Heat, the East’s eighth seed, another team the Bulls are chasing, and a team that’s been on quite a roll of late. Not the kind of team you want to have to face without one of your top interior defenders and frontcourt shooters.

With just a half-game separating the fourth-place Raptors from the No. 3 Washington Wizards, and only 2 1/2 games between the No. 7 Milwaukee Bucks and No. 10 Bulls, these two punches could wind up having a more significant impact on playoff positioning than they (again, thankfully) had on the skulls of their intended targets.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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