OKLAHOMA CITY — A man of few words, Nikola Jokic was candid and concise with his thoughts on the Luguentz 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 after Oklahoma City scored when Dort stuck out his right leg, tripping him. A common foul was called. Jokic got back on his feet and immediately confronted the Thunder wing, putting his chest into Dort’s. OKC center Jaylin Williams came to Dort’s defense and exchanged shoves with Jokic during a brief altercation at midcourt.

After officials reviewed footage 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 his 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. According to the NBA rulebook, 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,” James Williams said, “which is why both players received unsportsmanlike technicals fouls that were offset.”

Neither Dort nor Jaylin were made available for comment by the Thunder after the game.

“I didn’t see it because my back was turned at the time,” Nuggets forward Cam Johnson said. “But obviously, it was a cheap shot enough for (Dort) to be thrown out, so they took care of it.”

“If you were watching the game, I think you could see very clearly, very early that it was a chippy game,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “These are two teams that played each other in a seven-game series. We’re in the same division. We’ve played each other 100 times. They know our playbook. We know their playbook. It just is what it is. … I know Lu. I know Jokic. I know J-Will. I don’t think anybody was trying to hurt anybody. They’re just great competitors. It just boiled over. I think it was nothing more than that.

“I will say this. If a player (for us), if J-Will is running up the floor and gets tripped, we expect a flagrant two from this point forward. That’s all. If that’s the precedent, if that becomes a malicious play and flagrant two is the line in the sand on that, we would expect that if it’s J-Will. We would expect that if it’s anybody.”

When asked if he was insinuating that Dort was ejected only because a three-time NBA MVP was on the receiving end of the foul, Daigneault said, “I’m not going to answer the question like that. I said what I needed to say about it.”

Nuggets coach David Adelman said in his postgame news conference that he still needed to rewatch the incident, which was the culmination of what he described as “an emotional game.” Jokic and Oklahoma City’s players had bothered each other and bickered all night. It started in the first quarter, when Jokic shoved a screening Isaiah Hartenstein for a foul then made marginal contact with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander after the play. That seemingly prompted Gilgeous-Alexander to throw the ball at Jokic and receive an unsportsmanlike technical foul.

In another sequence, Jokic, Dort and Oklahoma City’s Aaron Wiggins got tangled up in the backcourt during a live ball as play continued at the opposite end of the court. Jokic and Jaylin also spent most of the game pushing and grabbing at each other as they fought for positioning in the post.

Throughout this season, Jokic and other Nuggets players have referenced Oklahoma City’s deliberately physical style of defense as a strategy they want to adopt more often. Players and coaches around the NBA have expressed frustration with the Thunder’s approach. “It’s so frustrating to play this team because they foul a ton. They really do,” Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said last season. “They foul. They foul all the time. And then you can’t really touch Shai. It’s a very frustrating thing.”

Dort has long been regarded as the primary steward of that philosophy, guarding with an intensity that earned him First-Team All-Defense honors in 2024-25.

He’s also been involved in multiple injury scares to star players in the last year. During a first-round playoff series against Memphis, he undercut Grizzlies guard Ja Morant on a dunk attempt. Morant flew over a half-upright Dort and landed on his hip, causing Morant to leave the game. The play was deemed to be a common foul. With Morant injured, the Thunder mounted a 27-point comeback to win the game.

On Christmas this season, Dort drew scrutiny from NBA fans after he appeared to run up on Victor Wembanyama’s legs while the San Antonio center was trying to box out for a rebound.

The Nuggets have played against Dort and the Thunder more than most teams. They matched up in a second-round playoff series that went seven games last season. When Jokic was asked if his reaction to Dort’s foul involved any pent-up frustration over previous things, the Serbian center responded, “We know they are chippy. They are handsy. They are a little bit on the edge. But I think we responded well.”

“I think his frustration is sometimes because the game is officiated differently out on the floor than it is near the basket,” Adelman said. “I think he was reacting to what was being done to him. And his reaction’s not going to be to cower away. He’s competitive. … Obviously with Dort’s play, I think that took it to a different level for him. He felt like it was malicious also.”

Jokic has his own history of fiery moments on the court. Most notably was his retaliatory blindside hit on Miami Heat Markieff Morris, who had similarly gone out of his way to shove Jokic moments earlier. The episode caused Morris to miss the next 58 games with an injury.

General chicanery between the Nuggets and Thunder dates back to last March, before their playoff series, when Daigneault exploited a loophole in the NBA rulebook — he called it a “permanent sub” — to prevent Jokic from inbounding the ball quickly against an unprepared defense. Michael Malone, who was Denver’s head coach at the time, didn’t appreciate the tactic.

The Nuggets visit Oklahoma City again on March 9 — a conveniently scheduled rematch barely a week after Dort’s flagrant foul and the furious reaction it provoked from Jokic. OKC leads the season series 2-0, having blown out Denver at Ball Arena on Feb. 1. Thunder fans jeered Jokic every time he touched the ball for the rest of the game Friday after the incident.

“We’re not gonna play the way we did in Denver,” Adelman said. “We’re gonna be physical with these guys.”

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