{"id":495947,"date":"2026-02-28T17:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T17:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/495947\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T17:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T17:01:08","slug":"thunders-dort-ejected-after-fouling-nuggets-jokic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/495947\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder’s Dort ejected after fouling Nuggets’ Jokic"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Thunder guard Lu Dort was ejected as tempers flared in the fourth quarter of Oklahoma City\u2019s 127-121 overtime victory<\/a> over Nikola Jokic and Denver Nuggets on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Dort fouled Jokic, and the Denver star got in Dort\u2019s face. A scrum ensued and Jokic and Oklahoma City\u2019s Jaylin Williams were called for offsetting technical fouls. Dort was issued a Flagrant 2 and ejected.<\/p>\n

The situation was brewing from the start. The Thunder beat Denver 4-3 in the Western Conference semifinals last season, and the Nuggets \u2014 especially Jokic \u2014 were committed to matching Oklahoma City\u2019s aggressive style. <\/p>\n

Dort was a first-team All-Defensive selection last season with a reputation for pushing the boundaries of acceptable physical play. Crew chief James Williams said after the game that Dort\u2019s hip check\/trip combination was dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cLu Dort was assessed a flagrant foul penalty 2 because we deemed his contact on Jokic to be unnecessary and excessive with a high potential for injury, and also because the contact led to an altercation that did not dissolve,\u201d Williams said. \u201cSo, by rule, a flagrant foul penalty 2 carries an automatic ejection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jokic, who had initiated contact with Thunder players throughout the game rather than letting it come to him, finally had enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an unnecessary move and a necessary reaction,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cI think there are not supposed to be those things on the basketball floor, so it was just an unnecessary move and a necessary reaction by me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nuggets coach David Adelman said he understood why Jokic finally snapped. He feels Jokic gets beat up when he\u2019s away from the basket and doesn\u2019t get the calls because of his 7-foot, 284-pound frame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was reacting to what was being done to him,\u201d Adelman said. \u201cAnd his reaction\u2019s not going to be cower away. He\u2019s competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said he\u2019s fine with the ejection as long as the call is consistent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf J. Will (Jalen Williams) is running off the floor and gets tripped, we expect a flagrant 2 from this point forward,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault. said. \u201cThat\u2019s all. If that\u2019s the precedent, if it becomes a malicious play, and flagrant 2 is the line in the sand on that, we would expect that if it\u2019s J. Will, we\u2019d expect that it\u2019s anybody. And if that is the case, we\u2019re good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was called for a technical in the opening minutes when he threw the ball at Jokic, who made high contact with him after play had stopped. James Williams said he did not consider the contact by Jokic\u2019s left forearm to be unsportsmanlike.<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s bench was called for a technical in the third quarter, and there was plenty of trash talking and shoving throughout. <\/p>\n

The teams meet March 9 in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we play them again, whatever it is, in like 10 days, I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be the exact same way,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 Thunder guard Lu Dort was ejected as tempers flared in the fourth quarter of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[402,3829,3832,4134,1753,7625,226833,56216,120882,355,1063,1756,9601,9600,12205,6402,6407,99],"class_list":["post-495947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-co-state-wire","tag-colorado","tag-david-adelman","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-jalen-williams","tag-james-williams","tag-jaylin-williams","tag-mark-daigneault","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-ok-state-wire","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}