SEATTLE -- Gary Payton and Vernon Maxwell have made up after a locker-room fight that injured two Seattle SuperSonics teammates.
"Whenever you go through a thing like Gary and Max went through, it is over the next day," center Horace Grant said. "Max and Gary are back on the same page. It's like a relationship and a marriage, you go through your ups and downs."The scrap happened Sunday, after a practice session in which Payton and Maxwell exchanged barbs. It escalated into a fight, which Grant and Chuck Person helped to end by pulling their teammates away from each other.
Payton and Maxwell made up before to the Sonics played the San Antonio Spurs on Monday.
However, Grant sat out Monday night's game with a bruised shoulder and Person, already on the injured list, aggravated his surgically repaired left knee. The struggling Sonics lost their fourth straight at home, 90-82.
General manager Wally Walker said neither Maxwell nor Payton will be suspended. However, team sources, speaking on the condition they not be identified, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer both players were fined for their behavior.
Grant is expected to play tonight when the Sonics are host to the New York Knicks.
With a 40-30 record and in eighth place in the Western Conference, coach Paul Westphal hopes the scuffle will motivate the Sonics.
"I told them that all the prophecies that everybody made about this team are going to come true if we don't fix it," Westphal said. "We've taken a lot of steps to prove we're a good team, and this is not the time to take steps backwards. This is the time to band together."