Advertisement

Luke Walton and the Lakers weren't big fans of being slapped around by the Bucks

Ben Rohrbach
Senior NBA writer
Greg Monroe and Brandon Ingram was an interesting undercard to the Nick Young-Malcolm Brogdon dust-up. (AP)
Greg Monroe and Brandon Ingram was an interesting undercard to the Nick Young-Malcolm Brogdon main event. (AP)

The Los Angeles Lakers benched Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng in a tank—, er, youth movement that should’ve been the plan before they signed those two for a combined $136 million this past summer, and they were officially eliminated from the playoffs on Friday for a fourth straight season — twice as long as the franchise’s previous record playoff drought. So forgive them if they’re feeling a bit testy.

And boy were they testy against the Milwaukee Bucks.

[Follow Ball Don’t Lie on social media: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Tumblr]

At the end of the third quarter, with Milwaukee up 10, Lakers guard Nick Young tried to finish off a three-on-one break, only to be blocked by Bucks rookie Malcolm Brogdon, who caught Young with his arm on the follow-through, earning a foul from the official and a shove from a frustrated Swaggy P.

That led Bucks big man Greg Monroe to shove Young by the neck. Lakers teammates D’Angelo Russell and Brandon Ingram rushed to Young’s defense, respectively shoving and jawing with Milwaukee’s Moose, and Ingram earned a slap to the face for his effort. It was your typical punchless NBA skirmish.

Young’s second technical of the game meant an immediate ejection. Upon review, Monroe and Russell were also ejected for escalating the situation. Lakers coach Luke Walton did not like that explanation.

Walton led off his postgame press conference by taking offense to the officiating crew’s decision to eject both Monroe and Russell, believing their actions shouldn’t have been equated. Via ESPN.com:

“Obviously, I don’t want anyone to throw punches or get hurt,” said Walton. “I just watched [the replay]. I’m going to need an explanation on it because it made no sense to me. They told me that D’Angelo got kicked out for escalating the situation. But D’Angelo only responded after Monroe had grabbed Nick by the neck and thrown him. If D’Angelo didn’t push him, I would’ve been pissed off at D’Angelo. He did the right thing.

“So for the NBA to say that the two of them did the same thing and just canceled each other out is absolute crap to me because D’Angelo just shoved [Monroe] in the back; Monroe grabbed [Young] by the neck. I don’t know if he was mad that [Ivica] Zubac was kicking his butt all night long out there. But you grab someone by the neck? That’s not right. And then Monroe went and slapped Brandon in the face. So he did all that and he got the same penalty as when D’Angelo just did it for shoving someone in the back that was a teammate. So that’s crap to me.”

Walton can probably expect to join a few of his players in earning a fine from the NBA for that rant. And he wasn’t done, also taking issue with a Bucks security guard pushing Ingram out of the scrum:

“And then watching the tape, one of their employees is on the floor, and he grabs Brandon by the jersey and shoves him — not holding him back, shoves him — and that doesn’t get addressed either?” added Walton. “If there’s nothing wrong with that, then I have no problem finding some people to hire on our staff.

“The next time we get in a skirmish, I’ll keep all my players back because the fact that they don’t get in trouble for that, the refs don’t say anything about that, and he puts his hands on one of our players? He works for them. He can touch their players all he wants. Don’t touch my damn players, because if that’s OK, I’m sure we can find a couple people here in L.A. that want that job working for the Lakers, too. That’s not right.”

Well, then. The good news for the Lakers is that, while the front office may be more focused on trying to secure the best odds at winning a top-three pick in the lottery — so as not to forfeit the selection as a result of the Steve Nash trade in 2012 — the players and coach aren’t done fighting. Literally.

L.A. cut Milwaukee’s lead to one possession in the final minute, only for Khris Middleton to seal a 107-103 win with a pair of free throws (for a season-high 30 points), and even then the Lakers didn’t stop coming. Ingram even took that fight to Twitter when warned against picking a fight with Monroe:

Unfortunately, the Lakers and Bucks don’t face each other again, so we probably won’t find out whether Ingram’s tough talk could counteract Monroe’s 75-pound weight advantage in a scuffle.

[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Basketball contest now]

Still, while Russell, Ingram and Walton all may face further discipline from the league for their roles in Friday night’s kerfuffle, this is just the sort of thing that could bond those three moving forward, and that’s no small feat for the core of a franchise in disarray. Young certainly enjoyed the festivities:

As did Lakers teammate Larry Nance, who viewed the dust-up as a learning experience.

“It was good,” said Nance, according to ESPN.com’s Baxter Holmes. I think that might have been the first time all year we all came together to defend one of our guys. It was good to see. It was growth. It was good to see. …

“It brings you closer as a team. It lets you know that if you’re out there, I’ve got your back no matter what. Obviously, you never want to see anybody lose any money, never want to see any fights on the basketball court, but when something like that does happen, it’s good to see everybody come together to protect our guy.”

At this point of the season, the Lakers — losers of their last four games, 12 of their last 13, and owners of the league’s second-worst record (20-49) — will take whatever growing experience they can get.

More on Yahoo Sports:
• Josh Donaldson refuses to run out home run
• The Cubs’ absurd cost of winning the World Series
• Conor McGregor says he’ll KO Floyd Mayweather and ‘shock the world’

– – – – – – –

Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!