Dillon Brooks and John Collins Scuffle Less Than Five Minutes Into Suns-Pistons Preseason Opener

The new NBA season is not a week old and Dillon Brooks already has his first review at the monitor. Less than five minutes into the Phoenix Suns’ preseason opener at the Detroit Pistons on Monday, Brooks and John Collins had to be separated in the paint, and a lengthy video review ended with Collins assessed a flagrant 1 and Brooks a technical foul, USA Today reports.

Update, October 6: Brooks has given his version at Suns practice, saying Collins tried to choke him and questioning why he was given a technical foul. The new section at the end of this article has the details.

What exactly happened in the first five minutes?

The clock read 7:23 in the first quarter. Brooks, in his second season with Phoenix, was guarding Collins in the paint with his usual physical approach, extending a forearm into him, the Arizona Republic reports. On the same possession Collins pulled down an offensive rebound over Brooks, who reached around him from behind chasing the ball.

Collins turned to face Brooks and put a hand into his face and neck area, with reports describing contact at the throat, Bleacher Report reports. Referees and security stepped in before it grew, with Miles Bridges and Devin Booker among the first Suns to reach Brooks, Arizona Sports reports.

Why did the review give Collins a flagrant and Brooks a technical?

Because the two calls punish different things. The officials first handed out double technicals, then used the review to split the sequence into instigation and escalation. Brooks’s repeated body contact stayed a technical. Collins’s contact to the head and neck area was upgraded to a flagrant 1, the category for unnecessary contact that falls short of the excessive contact that brings an ejection, as the site’s explainer on what a flagrant foul is in basketball sets out.

The practical difference showed immediately: Brooks went to the line and split two free throws, the Arizona Republic reports. The finer distinction between the two foul types, and why referees reach for one rather than the other, is covered in the guide to technical versus flagrant fouls.

What did Collins say about it after the game?

That he was glad it happened. Collins told reporters he was not necessarily trying to set that tone, but that he was glad he did, and that he intends to compete physically every night, Bleacher Report reports.

The context makes the quote land harder. Collins signed a three-year deal with Detroit in the offseason, Heavy reports, so his first game at Little Caesars Arena doubled as an introduction. A new starting forward telling his home crowd, in effect, that nobody will push him around in his own paint is the kind of first impression front offices quietly enjoy, even when it costs a flagrant.

Why does a preseason scuffle involving Brooks draw this much attention?

Because of the count he carries into every season. Brooks led the NBA with 17 technical fouls last season, USA Today reports, and his listed nickname on Basketball Reference is a reference to the villain role he has built across stops in Memphis, Houston and now Phoenix, Bleacher Report notes.

In the regular season that count has teeth: 16 technicals bring an automatic one-game suspension, with further suspensions every two technicals after that, and what counts as a technical foul in basketball is broad enough to include exactly the repeated off-ball contact Brooks specialises in. A preseason technical does not carry into that tally, Arizona Sports notes, which is the only reason Monday’s incident is a talking point rather than the first step toward a ban. This preseason has already produced one officiating storyline, when Scottie Barnes received the first push-off call under the NBA’s new emphasis; Brooks supplied the second, by a louder route.

Was anyone ejected or suspended?

No. Both players stayed in the game after the review, and no ejection followed because a flagrant 1, unlike a flagrant 2, does not require one. No suspension had been announced by either team or the league in the first wave of reporting.

That restraint is part of the story. The officials used the review to downgrade what the building briefly feared was a fight into two separate punishments, and the game continued. Detroit completed a comeback from 68-50 down at half-time to win 109-107, the Arizona Republic reports, in an exhibition whose result will be forgotten long before the clip of its fifth minute is.

What happens next for both players?

Brooks’s next test is simply repetition. Every crew in the league has now seen the Detroit tape, and a player with his reputation gets a shorter leash on borderline contact, as the fan-incident row that followed Sophie Cunningham telling A’ja Wilson to grow up showed in a different context this week: reputations travel faster than explanations.

Collins, meanwhile, has set an expectation he now has to meet across 82 games. Detroit reshaped its frontcourt around physicality this summer, and its new forward announced the terms in his first five minutes at home. The rematch dates will be circled for a reason that has nothing to do with the standings.

What did Brooks say about it at practice on October 6?

That he was the wronged party. Speaking after Tuesday’s practice in Chicago, Brooks walked through the sequence his way: Collins, embarrassed after trying to hit him and falling, got his hit in once a shot went up, and then, in Brooks’s words, “turns around, and tries to choke me, and put his hands on me,” the Arizona Republic reports.

His complaint is with his own punishment, not Collins’s. “That’s why I don’t get why I got the technical foul. I mean, I didn’t start nothing. I’m playing within the game,” Brooks said, adding that on calls like this he is “betting against the house.” The house, in his case, is a reputation built on a league-leading 17 technicals last season: officials review the player they know, and Brooks knows it.

He was not the only star publicly disputing an official story this week. In Philadelphia, LeBron James denied on Instagram that he had called out Joel Embiid for being late to practice, telling followers to “stop the lies.” The two rematches now carry dates as well as grievances: Phoenix visits Detroit on December 16 and hosts the Pistons on February 10, the Arizona Republic reports.