HOUSTON — My colleague, Ramona Shelburne, sent me a text near the end of tonight’s game, wondering what Kobe Bryant and Houston’s Ron Artest were saying to each other. Clearly, they were jawing back and forth. They also were shoving, which earned them matching technical fouls with a little less than 7 minutes left in the game.

I wasn’t close enough to hear what was said, but my answer to Ramona was this:

Artest: “Eff you.”

Kobe: “No, eff you.”

Artest: “No, no, eff you.”

Kobe: “No, no, no, eff you.”

Bryant would later say only that their conversation was “edgy.” I ran my guess of their conversation by Derek Fisher and he laughed and said, “Yeah, something like that.”