A basketball game between Australia and Gilas Pilipinas of the Philippines devolved into chaos in the third quarter, leading to a bench-clearing brawl.
Australia and the Philippines just had the biggest basketball brawl of the last decade
Chair throws, flying knees, punches, and clotheslines ...
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
It began following an offensive foul, in which Australia’s Chris Goulding was leveled with an elbow. There was retaliation, with Daniel Kickert coming in and leveling a Philippines player with an elbow of his own.
This caused everything to devolve into madness as the Philippines’ bench cleared and began throwing punches at Australian players.
There were flying chairs.
Thon Maker joined the fray with a flying knee.
While Andray Blatche, who is part of the Philippines team, threw a big-time clothesline in the brawl.
The crowd got involved, throwing bottles at Australian players and booing — which led to the president of basketball in the Philippines taking to the court to try to appeal to fans to calm down.
After referees reviewed tape of the brawl, a total of 13 players were ejected from the game, including nine from the Philippines — which led to the most bizarre thing you’re likely to see in an international basketball game.
Yes, you’re seeing this correctly. Philippines lost so many players they were down to three total, while Australia has seven players left. To make matters worse, one of the Philippines’ last remaining players had four fouls, and you know what happened next ...
He fouled out.
So the game was 5v2, then another player fouled out. At this point it was 5v1, at which time officials called the game.
This was truly one of the biggest brawls in basketball history.
