LOS ANGELES_Late in the Los Angeles Lakers' loss Friday night to the Phoenix Suns, a shoving match began between Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Phoenix point guard Tyler Ulis. Phoenix rookie Josh Jackson dived into the fray and earned himself a technical foul. Brook Lopez and Brandon Ingram jumped in to try to break it up.
As this happened, Lonzo Ball walked in the other direction.
"It's the NBA," Ball said later. "People ain't really gonna fight, so I ain't trying to get no tech."
Lakers coach Luke Walton has always been an advocate of his players sticking up for one another, even in the mild shoving matches that occur during NBA games. His philosophy seems to be that the technical foul is worth it to support your teammate.
He didn't react to Ball's actions quite like the internet did. But he did find it something worth discussing with Ball.
"I don't really care about how that looks because our guys love Zo," Walton said. "I think they all know what that looked like isn't what Zo is about and isn't symbolizing what his feelings are on that type of situation.
"I know the general public and the internet world likes to do what they do, but it didn't really affect our team at all because they know who Zo is and they know what he's about."
Walton said a teammate spoke with Ball about it.
"I want everything to come from the players," Walton said. "Whether someone is taking too many shots, someone is not playing hard on defense, I want players to hold each other accountable on that and feel comfortable enough within our environment to be able to call each other out on anything like that. It's nice when that happens."
In the past, veteran Corey Brewer has been a player comfortable with holding his young teammates accountable.
Although Ingram got involved, he said he thought it was "a false action."
"He was staying out of trouble," Lopez said of Ball. "I feel like I'm big enough where I can get in the middle of it. I'm not going to do anything crazy. I'm just trying to get everything under control. I thought he was smart just staying away from it."
