Thompson, Joseph suspend friendship for Raptors-Cavs

Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph appear to have gone Zero Dark Thirty on each other.

The two Toronto-area natives, friends since they played high school basketball together and then college ball alongside each other for one season at Texas, usually talk several times a week.

Not now.

"I'm not calling him, texting him, nothing. It's playoff time," Thompson told Cleveland.com's Chris Haynes. "Right now, it's about my guys. We're at war with them. It's nothing to talk about. He's my brother, but we're at war."

A sometimes chippy battle between the Toronto Raptors and Cleveland Cavaliers has reared its head a few times. When Thompson and Toronto's Bismack Biyombo started jawing in Game 3, a couple of shoves were exchanged between the Canadian pair, although they were overshadowed by LeBron James' thespian pratfall.

"I talked to him last series," Joseph said about interacting with Thompson. "There's no reason to talk to him right now. I don't have anything to tell him right now."

The two players - who grew up on opposite ends of Toronto - also share the same representation, James' superagent Rich Paul. According to Haynes, Paul is actively keeping Thompson and Joseph apart in client meetings during the series.

"You don't see eye-to-eye with your brother every game or every day when you're out there fighting," Joseph said. "If he gives me a little shot, I expect him to do that, but he'd better believe I'm going to do it right back. That's it. It's love at the end of the day, but we're both playing on different teams and we want to win. We're competitive people."