The Lakers and Warriors squared off Wednesday night, and the undermanned Warriors—who are currently missing both of the Splash Brothers—pulled out a 117-106 win. The young Lakers hung in there throughout the game—it was knotted at the half—but Luke Walton's squad couldn't defeat his former employer, as Golden State, No. 2 in the West, pulled away in the second half.
Tempers flew in the third quarter, as Julius Randle and Isaiah Thomas, who was making his first start as a member of Los Angeles, had to be separated. Veteran big man Brook Lopez stepped in between them, and rookie guard Lonzo Ball pushed Randle away from Thomas as the two exchanged passionate words.
After the game, Randle explained what went down.
"Ah, man. It was great, honestly," Randle said, according to ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. "We expect a lot out of each other and it was just communicating, man. We want to win, we expect to win these games and we expect each other to play at a certain level, so it was just us being teammates. There's nobody I'd rather go to war with than IT. So it's nothing personal, we're just trying to get the best out of each other and win the game."
Randle wouldn't divulge the specifics of what drove the heated exchange. "That's between us," Randle said. "But like I said, it's great that we can come into games and really expect to win these games and we expect a lot out of each other. That hasn't always been the case in the past, we weren't communicating, just let things fly. We're communicating trying to bring the best out of each other."
The former Kentucky forward later repeated that Thomas is "my dude" and "it's nothing personal."
Thomas echoed that it wasn't a big deal. "Nothing," he said when he asked what happened. "Just two basketball players competing. That's all it was. Happy to be yelling...We want the best for each other, we just want to win. We're two leaders on the team that we're competing on and it was a misunderstanding at one point and we talked about it and we're good. As teammates should."
Randle had 22 points and 10 boards in the loss. Thomas added 20 points and seven assists.
