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An hour before tipoff the Washington Wizards locker room is completely silent, except for one distinct sound: the methodical rhythm of Kelly Oubre Jr. trimming his fingernails in front of his locker. John Wall walks by. Silence. Bradley Beal walks in with his headphones on. Nothing. Otto Porter Jr. has his eyes glued to the projection screen in the locker room, not a peep. But Oubre keeps on trimming those fingernails. 

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Little does Oubre know that, just two hours later, he -- and particularly his well-manicured hands -- will become the subject of examination and, later, disappointment.

You've seen it by now. Draymond Green and Bradley Beal get tied up. Beal smacks Daymond in the face. They tumble to the ground. Green walks out with a torn jersey. Both are ejected.

There was trash talk going on from both sides, but it's clear that Beal was out of line. At first it seemed Green may have elbowed Beal in the ribs to incite such a reaction, but upon further review it looks like the Warriors' All-Star forward was just executing a pretty standard box out and then, BOOM.

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The postgame reactions also paint a picture of who was to blame. Beal was solemn, apologetic, embarrassed. Green was the exact opposite -- "irate" was how ESPN's Chris Haynes described him. So Beal lost his cool during a physical moment of the game and did something stupid -- it happens. Green thinks that his reputation led to an unfair ejection -- surely possible.

The one player who got a free pass was Oubre.

It was hard to see specific details from my seat at the opposite end of the sideline at Oracle Arena, but one thing was unmistakable -- Oubre running toward the pile and proceeding to throw punches. Yet when the dust was settled and in-game punishments had been handed out, Oubre remained on the court.

He. Literally. Threw. Punches.

But from that distance, I couldn't be sure. Maybe he was flailing his arms in a way that just looked like punches. Surely they wouldn't have left him in the game -- after an official replay review -- had he thrown fists.

As the game continued, however, the NBA Twitter sleuths got to work and produced video evidence that Oubre did in fact take some swings -- some got a nice laugh out of the fact that he inadvertently struck teammate John Wall in the back of the head. And after he hit Wall with his left hand, it sure looks like he took another swing with his right hand.

The Zapruder-esque work continued, highlighting the fact that Oubre also caught Klay Thompson with a "punch" to the face.

Oubre insisted after the game that he was trying to break up the fight, not instigate it. He said that he threw no punches and asked Klay Thompson if he was OK after the scuffle.

But I've watched those videos over and over. If he was trying to break up the fight, he was trying to do it by throwing punches.

"It was an aggressive game, man, and a lot of stuff happened," Oubre told CBS Sports after the game. "Both teams came away pretty much unscathed, everybody's healthy, so that's all that matters. Nobody really wants to go out there and fight. That's not what we're here to do. We're here to play basketball at the end of the day."

You don't like to pull past incidents into things like this -- one past mistake shouldn't condemn you for life -- but Oubre's is so fresh that it's impossible to ignore. During last season's playoff series between the Wizards and the Boston Celtics, Oubre became incensed after what he felt was an unnecessarily hard screen and rushed Boston's Kelly Olynyk, shoving him to the ground. The outburst caused him to be suspended for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

When you see that Oubre has a history of losing his temper, it's not a stretch to believe that he might have simply seen red when he found his teammate in trouble. His instinct seems to be fight, not flight.

Oubre also didn't help his case by blowing kisses to the Oracle crowd toward the end of the game as he made his way to the bench, as if to egg them on to boo him more.

Yet on the court, Oubre was marvelous. He tied a career high with 19 points and set a new one with four 3-pointers. But that will all be overshadowed by a few regrettable seconds.

Players in the NBA can quickly gain a reputation, as Green alluded to with his postgame comments. Oubre, like Green, seems to be fueled by his passion and aggression. But, also like Green, he needs to learn to channel it in a positive way.

And here's the thing -- he will. Oubre is just 21 years old and has a promising future ahead of him. He'll serve whatever punishment the league doles out, take this lesson and use it to make himself stronger, his game better.

Oubre tweeted something telling just hours before the incident on Friday: "You can't put me in a box. I'll break through it."

The phrase expresses Oubre's relentlessness, his desire to not be pigeonholed into something he's not.

Well, if that's the case then he needs to learn to control his temper. Two major incidents in your first three years in the league doesn't set a great precedent -- one more, and Oubre could end up being placed squarely in that box that he so desperately wants to break through.