Luke Walton Defends Players After Fight, Ejections in Game Against Bucks

The Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday in a close contest. It was a better effort from a Lakers team that has recently looked lost and disinterested in basketball.

Part of the fire burning underneath the Lakers on Friday was a brief skirmish involving several Bucks and Lakers players. Late in the third quarter, Nick Young was the victim of a hard foul by Milwaukee’s Malcolm Brogdon.

Young took exception to the foul, seemingly due to Brogdon swinging through to his head after initially hitting the ball. The Lakers’ guard shoved Brogdon, inciting a multi-player pushing match:

The result of the brief skirmish was Nick Young earning a second technical foul and getting ejected. Both Greg Monroe and D’Angelo Russell were assessed technicals and also ejected due to their roles in escalating the situation.

After the game, head coach Luke Walton was very vocal in defending his players for their roles in the fight.

Walton stuck up for Russell whose ejection seemed unwarranted as he only shoved Monroe for a brief second.

Luke also praised his players for sticking up for each other and coming to Young’s aid.

Most importantly, Walton ranted about the referees’ handling of the entire situation. A Bucks’ employee (seen wearing a suit in the video above) pushed Ingram multiple times and was seemingly not reprimanded for the situation. Walton was having none of that in his postgame press conference, in a probably fine-worthy rant:

His full statement on that particular issue follows:

And of course, Luke made sure to bring a little bit of his own fire to the fight as well:

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Long live Luke Walton.

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