OKLAHOMA CITY — A man of few words, Nikola Jokic was candid and concise with his thoughts on the Lu Dort flagrant foul that provoked him to get in Dort’s face Friday night.
“Unnecessary move, and a necessary reaction,” the Nuggets center said. “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 (by Dort) and a necessary reaction by me.”
Jokic was jogging up the floor without the ball after Oklahoma City scored when Dort stuck out his right leg and tripped him. After a foul was called to stop play, Jokic got back on his feet and confronted the Thunder wing, putting his chest into Dort’s. OKC center Jaylin Williams came to Dort’s defense and exchanged shoves with Jokic as a brief altercation ensued at midcourt.
After officials reviewed a replay of the incident, Dort’s foul was upgraded to a flagrant two, resulting in an automatic ejection. Jokic and Williams received matching technical fouls and were allowed to stay in the game, which the Thunder went on to win 127-121 in overtime.
“Lu Dort was assessed a flagrant foul penalty (level) two because we deemed (Dort’s) contact on Jokic to be unnecessary and excessive with a high potential for injury,” crew chief James Williams said in a pool report. “And also because the contact led to an altercation that did not dissolve.”
Jokic said he was confident he wouldn’t be ejected because “I didn’t do nothing.” He declined to comment, saying “it’s not worth it,” when asked about the situation escalating between him and Williams. Officials determined that Jokic didn’t throw a punch when he took a swipe at Williams with his left hand during the altercation. According to the NBA rulebook, throwing a punch is automatically punished by an ejection and suspension of at least one game.
“When we reviewed that play, we did not see any actions by either player that would have risen to the level of an ejection,” Williams said, “which is why both players received unsportsmanlike technicals fouls that were offset.”
Neither Dort nor Williams were made available for comment by the Thunder after the game.