Michael C. Wright
SAN ANTONIO — A testy third-quarter scuffle nearly erupted into a full-blown fight Sunday, resulting in three ejections, during the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s 146-132 win over the San Antonio Spurs.
“We had an altercation?” Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams asked jokingly during his postgame interview on the court with ESPN. “It made us refocus, figure out what’s important.”
Officials issued double technicals to Kenrich Williams and Julian Champagnie as well as Jeremy Sochan and Lu Dort after the incident. Williams, Champagnie and Dort were ejected.
With three minutes left in the third quarter, Williams was elbowed in the jaw while guarding Champagnie as he passed to Stephon Castle, who found Sochan cutting under the basket for a two-handed dunk. As that play unfolded, Williams and Champagnie stood near the scorer’s table, shoving each other.
“When people are aggressive, there are a lot of coincidental elbows or contact,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “I don’t really know who was at fault, to be honest. But it just looked like that was what initiated it. And then there was the response on both ends. [It] just looked like Kenrich Williams was being aggressive, and Julian was opening up. I don’t know if that’s an offensive foul now. I don’t know where that line is of what space you’re allowed.”
Players, officials, security personnel and coaches from both teams rushed to break up the scuffle. But the situation escalated as Sochan and Dort grabbed each other in a scrum that involved more than 10 people, including Castle, De’Aaron Fox, Keldon Johnson, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins.
“I went for a dunk, and then all I see is just everyone going to one spot,” Sochan said while smiling. “So, like I had to go to the same spot. It was a little scuffle. I think it was pretty playful. It wasn’t anything too serious. Yeah, it kind of evolved. I had to react a little bit in the playful scuffle.”
NBA official James Williams announced the play was “under review for an altercation that does not dissolve.” After the review, Williams issued the double technicals and ejections. Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said Dort was ejected for something he said during the scuffle. Dort’s words were not directed at the officials, the coach added.
“We have not been a team that’s retaliated very much,” Daigneault said. “We retaliated tonight. We have the worst free throw differential in the NBA. So, more fouls are being called on us than are being called on our opponents. I think there’s a cumulative frustration, and I think our guys finally got to a point where they had had enough. We have to have better poise. We don’t want to lose rotation players in big games as a result of that. We’ve done a great job of that for a long period of time, and I just think the cumulative effect of the pummeling we take on some plays boiled over in that situation.”
Kenrich Williams went scoreless in 10 minutes, while Dort contributed nine points, nine rebounds and a steal in helping Oklahoma City capture its third straight victory. Champagnie tallied eight points on 3-of-4 shooting.
On Jalen Williams’ Instagram, he posted a picture of Dort in the locker room and jokingly referred to him as “1st team all crashout.”
“I got the explanation from James Williams,” Daigneault said. “If James Williams wants to eject him for that, I think it’s justified. Again, the issue I have with that is I’ve heard with my own ears in the last two weeks other players say similar or worse things to officials with no response. The officials are saying we’re calibrating to the emotion of the game. Great. If we’re calibrating with one player, we should be calibrating with Lu Dort. If there’s zero tolerance for Lu Dort, there should be zero tolerance to everybody. They’ve got to figure that out.”
