Emotions were running high during Monday night’s Eastern Conference matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics.Since the Cleveland Cavaliers are without Kevin Love for an extended period of time as he recovers from knee surgery and now that the Toronto Raptors will be without Kyle Lowry until at least the playoffs due to his ailing wrist, there’s a window of opportunity in the East.And both the Celtics, who entered the game in second place at 38-21 and the Hawks, who entered the game in fifth place at 32-26 showed that they understood the gravity of the situation in what turned out to be a physical, drama-filled game.While the game turned into a blowout in the fourth quarter, there were some high-intensity moments between the two teams who clearly don’t like each other.One of those moments happened right after halftime, when Hawks center Dwight Howard got tangled up with former Hawks center Al Horford after a hard foul. Check it out below.

Horford, who decided to leave Atlanta in free agency in the offseason, was clearly fired up after Howard shoved him.

Here’s another angle of what sparked Howard’s shove.

From Howard’s perspective, he was fouled hard on the play and you can make the case that Horford wasn’t making a play on the ball.

Regardless, as a result, Howard was assessed his first technical foul of the night. (He was later given his second later in the quarter and was ejected.)

After the game, Howard wouldn’t elaborate on the situation with Horford.

But he did apologize for getting ejected, even if it came after the questionable act below.

After gathering an offensive rebound, Howard showed some pizzaz on his two-handed slam. That’s a brutal way to get ejected.

Howard did get the last laugh on the way to the locker room following his ejection, however.

That’s trolling at its finest!

On the night, Howard posted 17 points and 12 rebounds over 27 minutes while Horford was much less effective, posting six points, six rebounds and five assists over 28 minutes in the loss.

With the season series now split at 1-1, the two teams will square off on Thursday, April 6 in the regular season finale. It remains to be seen whether the Howard/Horford drama will carry over to that game.

For everyone’s viewing pleasure, we can only hope that it will.