By Tim Reynolds

Trevor Ariza said nothing happened. The NBA strongly disagreed.

Ariza and Gerald Green will both be suspended for Houston’s next two games, with the NBA coming down hard on both players Wednesday for what the league said was their “hostile, verbal altercation” in the Los Angeles Clippers’ locker room earlier this week.

No other players were disciplined, including Rockets guards James Harden and Chris Paul — both of whom left the Houston locker room with hopes of defusing the situation, the league said.

“You guys had a lot of different stories about what happened, none of them which were true,” Ariza said Wednesday in Houston, before the league announced the suspensions. “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion. The people that were there know exactly what happened and know exactly what did not happen.”

So what happened?

“Nothing happened,” Ariza said. “That’s what happened. Nothing.” Later, though, he conceded “obviously, that’s not all that happened.”

Whatever it was that actually happened, however, remains a mystery of sorts. The final minutes of the game — which was Paul’s first time facing the Clippers in Los Angeles as an opponent since the trade that sent him to Houston over the summer — were marred by some on-court feistiness, including the Clippers’ Blake Griffin appearing to exchange words with Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni.

Griffin and Ariza were also ejected with 1:03 remaining from a game that had five technical fouls, and then the postgame incident.

“It’s over,” Paul said. “It’s in the past. We’re moving on.”

Ariza and Green will miss games against two of the best teams in the Western Conference — Minnesota on Thursday and Golden State on Saturday. Ariza has started all 40 of his appearances with Houston this season, and Green has played in 10 games with the team as a reserve.

The Clippers were playing Denver on Wednesday night, and at the team’s gameday shootaround practice players said they were thinking only about the Nuggets. Clippers coach Doc Rivers was expected to address the end of the NBA probe in his pregame media availablity.

“I ain’t worried about it,” Clippers guard Tyrone Wallace said. “That’s not for me to worry about. I just focus on the game. We’ve got Denver, so that’s what I’m focused on. Everything else will take care of itself.”

The league said the investigation included more than 20 interviews with executives, staff, coaches and players from both teams, as well as arena personnel.

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Associated Press writers Joshua Koch in Houston and Jill Painter Lopez in Los Angeles contributed to this report.