Apparently, the two young NBA point guards had a heated exchange in their first matchup this season.

The 2009 NBA basketball season is in full swing and we are already waiting for the next matchup between the Boston Celtics and the New Orleans Hornets. Why? One, a Celtics – Hornets game should be one of the more competitive games you’ll ever see in the NBA. Two, CP3 and R2 (we are officially giving Rajon Rondo that moniker…) don’t like each other.

You read it, Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo won’t be exchanging pleasantries this Holiday season. It was during a game between the Boston Celtics and the New Orleans Hornets at the TD Banknorth Garden and while the Celtics won the game, 97-87, it wasn’t about the Celtics winning their fourth straight game but about this thing between Paul and Rondo.

It all started in the second quarter when both Chris Paul and Rajon Rondo got tangled up under the basket in the second quarter, resulting to both receiving a technical foul. Of course, tensions were running high between the two guards all game long and they were not done even after the final buzzer.

Apparently, beating the New Orleans Hornets wasn’t enough for Rajon Rondo to be in a festive mood as he approached Chris Paul after the game while the player was exchanging post-game handshakes with Paul Pierce.

Media accounts from the game suggested that both Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul had to be separated after the two started shouting at each other. Paul even tried to follow Rondo off the floor afterward before the Celtics assistant coaches stopped him. Hornets head coach Byron Scott then came over to go fetch the agitated CP3.

On Twitter, CP3 cleared up the entire episode, sort of.

”… [Just] to clear this up I never came close to approaching the Celts locker room last [night]. Not sure where that’s coming from. Also me [and Celtics assistant coach Tom] Thibodeau never got in a shouting match. We talked. … [Too] much respect for him, crazy how it’s twisted,” Paul wrote on his Twitter page.

Coach Byron Scott, on the other hand, is standing up for his man.

”I think there comes a point in time in a game or even after a game when somebody says something to you, and the only thing I heard Chris say at the end of the game when we were walking off was that, ‘He’s going to respect me as a man,” Scott said. ”So I don’t know what Rondo said, but obviously Chris took exception to it.”

The Celtics and the Hornets will dance again on February 10 in New Orleans. I wonder what kind of welcome Rondo will get?

Which team will win the 2010 NBA Finals? SPORTSBETTING.COM has the early odds.

Los Angeles Lakers 5-2

Orlando Magic 7-1

Boston Celtics 5-1

Denver Nuggets 12-1

Want more odds? Visit SPORTSBETTING.com for more basketball betting odds. Want to watch the NBA live? Get NBA tickets online now.

Rajon Rondo Chris Paul