The Brawl Buddies faced off Wednesday and Sacramento, and it was brutal. The way they were going at it, you would never have known it was Artest who Jackson ran into the crowd to defend when he threw those infamous haymakers.

They never got testy with one another, but they were banging and hacking away. Jackson took several Artest shoulders to the chest, and Artest absorbed some hard swipes from Jack. The crazy part was that three-point play, the one that preceded Jax’s technical foul, was a touch foul.

I was honestly surprised at how physical they were, but even more surprised that Jax held his ground. Artest is a bruising dude, man. He punishes people down low. The Warriors left him one-on-one, too. No help or nothing. Jax is a great defender against soft players, or when he has the quickness advantage against a bigger four. But he had neither the size, strength and quickness — but held his own.