{"id":509474,"date":"2026-02-28T10:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509474\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T10:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T10:06:09","slug":"nuggets-jokic-calls-out-thunders-dort-for-unnecessary-foul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/509474\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ Jokic calls out Thunder’s Dort for ‘unnecessary’ foul"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tim MacMahonFeb 28, 2026, 06:57 PM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM<\/p>\n

Multiple Authors<\/p>\n

OKLAHOMA CITY — After Denver Nuggets<\/a> superstar Nikola Jokic<\/a> tumbled to the Paycom Center court early in the fourth quarter Friday night, he determined that he needed to react to what he considered a dirty tactic by Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> guard Luguentz Dort<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A chippy game between rivals who faced off in a seven-game series in last season’s Western Conference semifinals escalated into a heated confrontation at that point, resulting in Dort’s ejection and double technical fouls on Jokic and Oklahoma City center Jaylin Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The fracas began when Dort appeared to trip Jokic as he ran up the court with 8:03 remaining in the fourth quarter. Dort backed into Jokic and stuck out his right foot, knocking down the big man, who quickly pounced to his feet to angrily confront Dort.<\/p>\n

“It’s an unnecessary move and a necessary reaction,” Jokic said after the Nuggets’ 127-121<\/a> overtime loss to the defending champions. “There is no such thing — I think there’s not supposed to be those things on a basketball floor. So, it was just an unnecessary move and a necessary reaction by me.”<\/p>\n

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After Jokic chest-bumped Dort, Williams rushed over to intervene. Jokic and Williams exchanged shoves and grabbed each other’s jerseys as a scrum of players, coaches, officials and staffers formed around them and eventually separated them.<\/p>\n

“Just competing,” Williams told ESPN. “Two teams competing, that’s it. That’s all I got.”<\/p>\n

After a review, the foul called against Dort was upgraded to a flagrant foul 2, resulting in an automatic ejection. Crew chief James Williams told a pool reporter that the officials “deemed [Dort’s] contact on Jokic to be unnecessary and excessive with a high potential for injury.” Williams also cited the contact leading to an “altercation that did not dissolve” as a reason for upgrading it to a flagrant foul 2.<\/p>\n

“I will say this: If [Williams] is running up the floor and gets tripped, we expect a flagrant 2 from this point forward,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “That’s all. If that’s the precedent, if that becomes a malicious play and flagrant 2 is the line in the sand on that, we would expect that if it’s [Williams]. We would expect that if it’s anybody. And if that’s the case, we’re good.”<\/p>\n

Asked if he believed the play was ruled a flagrant 2 because the foul was committed against a three-time MVP, Daigneault said: “No, I’m not going to answer the question like that. I said what I needed to say about it.”<\/p>\n

Nuggets star Nikola Jokic confronts Thunder guard Luguentz Dort, who was called for a flagrant foul 2 after an apparent trip in the fourth quarter. Jokic and OKC’s Jaylin Williams received technical fouls.\u00a0Photo by Joshua Gateley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The referees determined that the actions of Jokic and Jaylin Williams during the altercation did not rise to the level of an ejection, James Williams said in the pool report.<\/p>\n

The fracas overshadowed the return of reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a>, who had 36 points on 12-of-29 shooting and dished out nine assists in 34 minutes. Gilgeous-Alexander sat out the overtime period because he had reached his minutes limit after missing the previous nine games because of an abdominal strain suffered Feb. 3.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander was called for a technical foul in the first quarter when he responded to Jokic’s post-whistle contact by throwing the ball at him. James Williams told the pool reporter that Jokic was not called for a technical on that play because the officials determined that his contact with his left forearm did not rise to the level of an unsportsmanlike act.<\/p>\n

“They’re obviously a high-level team, we’re a high-level team, and we’ve seen each other a lot in the past couple of years, so we might be a little bit more into the game just because we know the opponent,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It was fun. It was good out there. End-of-season basketball is like that. It’s that chippy, that physical, so it was good to get one of those in the regular season.”<\/p>\n

The Nuggets fell to 4-7 since Jokic returned from a monthlong absence, including 1-6 in clutch games (within five points in the final five minutes) during that span. Jokic recorded his league-leading 22nd triple-double with 23 points, 17 rebounds and 14 assists against the Thunder, but his uncharacteristic recent shooting struggles continued, as he went 9-of-25 from the floor and 2-of-10 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

Jokic, who was 3-of-5 from the free throw line, animatedly protested no-calls after several of his shots. There were also multiple instances of Jokic bumping and shoving with Thunder players during the game.<\/p>\n

“I think his frustration is sometimes because the game’s officiated differently out on the floor than it is near the basket, and I think he was reacting to what was being done to him,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said. “And his reaction’s not going to be to cower away. He’s competitive. … I know why he’s frustrated. I can feel his frustration with all the contact out there. He shot five free throws.<\/p>\n

“It’s just part of the game. The closer you get to the basket, it seems like for a bigger guy, it seems like it’s called a little bit different, but he has to react to that the right way. Concentrate and finish through contact. And obviously with Dort’s play, I think that took it to a different level for him. He felt like it was malicious, also.”<\/p>\n

The Nuggets and Thunder meet again March 9 in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim MacMahonFeb 28, 2026, 06:57 PM CloseJoined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009Covers the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas MavericksAppears regularly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-509474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}