Tristan Thompson and Serge Ibaka nearly come to blows during Bulls-Bucks

Tempers flared between Tristan Thompson and Serge Ibaka as the Milwaukee Bucks waxed the Chicago Bulls at Fiserv Forum.

There wasn’t much of a game for Chicago Bulls fans to enjoy after the six-minute mark of the first quarter on Tuesday night. The game went from tied at 22 to a 43-24 Bucks lead in a blink of an eye. The Bucks dominated the game in the paint and from 3-point range in addition to controlling the tempo by holding the Bulls to zero fast break points.

The most excitement for Bulls fans came at the end of the game when big men Tristan Thompson and Serge Ibaka got tangled up down low.

They were battling for positioning when Thompson appeared to grab Ibaka’s shorts. Ibaka responded by slapping Thompson’s hand away and throwing what appeared to be a punch/elbow. Thompson wrapped Ibaka up and both teams rushed over to separate the two..

Bulls-Bucks gets heated after Tristan Thompson and Serge Ibaka get into it

This isn’t the first time things escalated between the Bucks and Bulls. Alex Caruso fractured his wrist from a fall caused by a flagrant foul committed by Bucks guard Grayson Allen. The fallout from that flagrant dominated the headlines since it happened.

The team’s Twitter accounts went back and forth, Thompson practically threatened Allen ahead of the teams’ following matchup, and Bulls wing Derrick Jones Jr. committed a flagrant foul on Allen. It’s worth noting that Jones Jr. said he wasn’t trying to retaliate on Allen. Bulls fans did want to retaliate, though, as they booed Allen the entire game.

Unfortunately, this contest wasn’t half as entertaining. The Bulls lost 126-98. Thompson’s tie-up with Ibaka was short lived and had no impact on the game since it came late in the fourth quarter when this one was wrapped up.

The Bulls will travel to New Orleans for a Thursday night game against the Pelicans, who are without Zion Williamson after he was recently ruled out for the rest of the season. Despite that, the Pels are playing good basketball, currently fighting for seeding in the Western Conference play-in tournament.

The Bulls will have to come out with more consistency than they did on Tuesday night to get back in the win column Thursday. Perhaps this incident between Thompson and Ibaka lights a much-needed fire under this limping Chicago side.