I was standing in a Staples Center hallway with two Times colleagues late Sunday afternoon, smack in the middle of another torrential Lakers drama, when we were suddenly greeted by the eye of the storm.
It was not a scheduled interview. It was barely an interview at all. Johnson mostly spoke on background. But he clearly wanted to send a message through myself, Broderick Turner and Tania Ganguli about last week’s infamous scolding of Coach Luke Walton.
He wants everyone to know he supports Walton, yet he doubled down on taking him to the woodshed.
“Luke and I are fine … but I’m going to do my job, and I don’t care what anybody thinks,” Johnson told the Times.