OKLAHOMA CITY -- After Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic 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 guard Luguentz Dort.
A chippy game between rivals who had a seven-game battle 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.
The fracas began when Dort appeared to trip Jokic as the three-time MVP 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.
"It's an unnecessary move and a necessary reaction," Jokic said after the Nuggets' 127-121 overtime loss to the defending champions. "There is no such a 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."
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 the centers.
"Just competing," Williams told ESPN. "Two teams competing, that's it. That's all I got."
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.
"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."
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."
The referees determined that the actions of Jokic and Williams during the altercation did not rise to the level of an ejection, Williams said in the pool report.
The fracas overshadowed the return of reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 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 with an abdominal strain suffered on Feb. 3.
Gilgeous-Alexander was called for a technical foul in the first quarter when he responded to post-whistle contact by Jokic by throwing the ball at him. 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.
"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."
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.
Jokic, who was 3-of-5 from the 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.
"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 way. 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.
"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."
The Nuggets and Thunder meet again March 9 in Oklahoma City.