Matt Barnes and Rafer Alston had an altercation during Wednesday's game at Phoenix after the Suns' wing lowered his shoulder into a high screen set by Alston.

Barnes said he had been hit by a hard screen earlier in the game and saw how teammate Steve Nash had been drilled by a Tracy McGrady screen. Nash winced on the play because it aggravated a pinched nerve in his neck that has bothered him.

"They're not going to screen me hard," said Barnes, who did not have a foul called on him but was ejected along with Alston. "So I ran through a screen, and he didn't like that.

"You've always got to watch out for your team, especially for your star point guard . . . I don't really know what he was thinking. He thinks he's tough so he ran up on me. It was just a bunch of pushing."

Alston charged back at Barnes, prompting Nash to race into the picture and get shoved back out of it by Tracy McGrady.

"He just took a cheap shot at me," Alston said. "If you look at the replay, the ref is standing there watching it. It was a dirty play. He raised his arm. Good thing he didn't connect and knock my teeth out. I was just setting a screen. We were trying to get a two-for-one.

"I don't know if he was frustrated by his game or their game or whatever was going on, but there was no call for that. There was no call for my reaction really but sometimes when you someone goes at you like that, you just react."

Nash called it, "a pretty minor incident."