Dillon Brooks ejected from first game with Rockets for groin strike - ESPN

Houston forward Dillon Brooks was ejected 4:33 into his first game with the Rockets for a flagrant foul 2 to the groin of Indiana Pacers center Daniel Theis on Tuesday night.

Brooks said after the Rockets' 122-103 win in their preseason opener against the visiting Pacers that he didn't mean to strike Theis and chalked the ejection up to his reputation.

«I tried to navigate a screen,» Brooks said, according to the Houston Chronicle. «I might have tapped him below waist. But he got right back up. I don't know. It's weird that every time it happens to me, I get picked on. I guess it's part of reputation.»

Brooks, then with the Memphis Grizzlies, gave a similar explanation after being ejected for a flagrant foul 2 in Game 3 of last season's playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers, when he struck LeBron James in the groin.

«The media making me a villain, the fans making me a villain and then that just creates a whole different persona on me,» Brooks said in April.

As for Tuesday night's toss, Brooks said: «For a flagrant 2 foul like that, you got to know if a person is doing it on purpose or intention. That's really going at who I am as a person. That ref, Mitch [Ervin], that just shows that he just doesn't know who I am as a person. He's just going off what's been said.»

The Grizzlies opted against attempting to re-sign Brooks in free agency this summer because of his often-antagonistic antics, among other factors. He subsequently agreed to a four-year, $80 million contract with the Rockets.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka acknowledged there is a perception around Brooks.

«We love his aggressiveness and physicality,» Udoka said, according to the Houston Chronicle. «But reputations carry in the NBA, and people will look for