CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In the aftermath of Monday night’s game, players were still trying to process what happened between Serge Ibaka and Marquese Chriss -- a brief moment late in the third quarter that exploded quickly, led to punches being thrown and a pair of ejections.

On the record, nobody was willing to say much.

Kyle Lowry played coy. Raptors head coach Nick Nurse spoke to Ibaka, but didn’t ask what led to the incident. Kawhi Leonard said he couldn’t comment, acting like he was protecting a state secret. There were a few jokes after the game between Kevin Love and Lowry, but nothing revealing.

The theory privately held inside the Cavaliers locker room: Four years of pent-up frustration from a mountain of playoff losses against Cleveland finally spilled over, causing Ibaka to snap.

The Cavs swept the Raptors in the conference semifinals the last two years. They have booted Toronto from the postseason in three consecutive. On Monday, the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference was pounding the Raptors by 14 at the time.

“That might have been exactly what it was,” Love said to cleveland.com when the conversation about Cleveland’s past dominance over the Raptors came up.

Chriss had left the arena by the time reporters entered the locker room so he didn’t speak. Only he -- and Ibaka -- know for certain.

Ibaka was long gone as well, only offering a statement through a team spokesperson confirming that he reacted to something Chriss said while lying on the ground.

“Obviously I was on the bench at that time,” Marc Gasol said when asked what led to the fracas. “It’s an emotional game. Sometimes things happen. It’s a contact sport and you say the wrong things and emotions build up and sometimes it explodes.”

Brandon Knight was the closest Cavalier to the play. He sprinted over to break it up. Knight said he didn’t hear what was said, if anything, and was surprised by Ibaka’s reaction. Knight also felt for Chriss, who was in a “no-win situation.”

“He had to defend himself,” Knight told cleveland.com. “What else was he supposed to do?”

Knight has a point. Chriss got attacked. Doing nothing would have led to him getting punched in the face or Ibaka not letting go of the chokehold. Defending himself meant an ejection and a possible suspension, which the team is already bracing for, according to a source that spoke to cleveland.com late Monday night.

“I mean, I don’t condone fighting at all, but I think if somebody comes at you, you have the right to defend yourself,” Cavs head coach Larry Drew said. “I have to go back and look at the tape to see exactly what happened, but I don’t believe there’s a place in our game for fighting. In the heat of the moment I understand that things do happen. If you get in a situation where clearly you’re being attacked, your natural instinct is going to be to defend yourself. I’m not sure what happened, I’ll go back and take a look and it and then I’ll make a judgment on that.”

Both Drew and Nurse said after the game they hadn’t watched the replay. Nurse just expressed concern with his sometimes-starting center.

“I just wanted to see if he was OK, first of all, I didn’t know if there was any punches landed or any of that kind of stuff,” Nurse said. “I just wanted to make sure physically he was OK. He seemed fine.”

The play happened quickly. In the final second of the third quarter, Raptors swingman Norman Powell tried launching a pass the length of the court for one more shot.

Ibaka and Chriss were battling for position before Ibaka flopped to the floor, trying to get a cheap whistle. The ball sailed out of bounds and while Ibaka was still on the ground, Chriss looked down at him, said something and started walking away. While Chriss’ back was turned, Ibaka charged at him, attacked him from behind, grabbed him by the throat, pushed him against the stanchion and threw a punch that didn’t land.

Defending himself, Chriss took a swing of his own, which led to the ejection. At least, that was the explanation Drew received.

“The referee said that both guys threw punches and that’s automatic ejection,” Drew said. “If that was the case, I was not surprised.”

“We don’t certainly want that in the game,” Nurse said. “It’s going to cost him a game, probably, right? It usually does when there’s an altercation like that and we don’t want that. We don’t want to lose one of our guys for incidents like that. Whether it’s Serge or anybody.”

Ibaka has a history of on-court incidents so the suspension is likely to be more than just one game. Whether in Toronto or Oklahoma City, Ibaka has gotten into scuffles with Miami’s James Johnson, DeMarcus Cousins, Salah Mejri, Robin Lopez, John Wall, Vince Carter, LaMarcus Aldridge and Matt Barnes. He has thrown punches at Johnson and Lopez, receiving a one-game suspension for each of those altercations.

Tonight, it just happened to be Chriss.

“I stepped and saw it and it happened so fast you almost, everybody almost wants to run out there and take a look at what’s going on, so out of the corner of my eye I saw it,” Love said. “It was broken up quick and that’s usually how it goes.”

Love was on the bench at the time. But he was standing up, around the 3-point line trying to get Drew’s attention. Since it was a turnover, Love thought the Cavs were getting the ball back and wanted to be involved in the next play after being subbed out three minutes earlier.

Following the incident, the Cavs outscored the Raptors 35-24.

“You never want to see that, but I think the fact that we kept our focus and kept our foot on the gas was key in tonight’s win,” Love said.