During Oklahoma City Thunder All-Star Jalen Williams’ career scoring night against the San Antonio Spurs, two of his teammates, Kenrich Williams and Lu Dort, were ejected after a scuffle ensued involving Spurs’ Julian Champagnie. All three players were ejected, which Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault reacted to during his media availability after Oklahoma City beat San Antonio 146-132.
Daingeault didn’t have much to say about Sunday’s Thunder—Spurs fight that led to three ejections. However, he didn’t hold back while defending Kenrich and Dort.
“I haven’t seen it. I was out there. So, I’m not going to see much,” Daigneault said. “The refs are reviewing it. The thing I’ll say about that is we have not been a team that has retaliated very much. We retaliated tonight. But we have the worst free-throw differential in the NBA.”
Daigneault understands why the frustration boiled over in Sunday’s win against the Spurs.
“Kenrich Williams, we’re in Memphis a couple of weeks ago, and he got a clean elbow to the head,” Daigneault added. “No call. No review. I mean, he could have gotten hurt. Now, tonight, again, I don’t think it’s personal with Champagnie, but he takes an elbow on that play. Dort gets illegal-screened more than anybody in the league. He gets cleaned out on screens. So, I think there’s an accumulative frustration, and I think our guys finally got to a point where they had enough.
“We have got to have better poise. We don’t want to lose rotation players in big games as a result of that. But we’ve done a great job of that for a long period of time, and I just think the accumulative effect of the pummelling that we take on some plays boiled over,” Daigneault concluded.
Thunder All-Star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander weighed in on the scuffle.
“It was a blur,” he said. “I just tried to separate the blur as best as I could.”
Official explains Lu Dort, Thunder ejections to Mark Daigneault
NBA official James Williams explained to Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault that Dort’s ejection was for something he said rather than the physical altercation.
Still, Daigneault says the calls between the Thunder and their opponents haven’t been even.
“I’ve heard with my own ears in the last two weeks other players say similar or worse things to officials with no response,” Daigneault said. “The inconsistencies with those plays is what I have a problem with. 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 for everybody. They have to figure that out.”
The Thunder will face the Rockets on Monday.
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