The last thing anybody wants is for important NBA games to get determined by officiating, but that might have happened as the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, 136-120, on Tuesday night. The key moment came midway through the fourth quarter, when Luka Dončić had just given the Lakers a 108-107 lead with a floater over Isaiah Hartenstein.
Afterward, Dončić turned around to share a few words with someone, seemingly a fan sitting courtside in Oklahoma City. The only problem? Official J.T. Orr thought that Dončić was talking to him. Dončić had already picked up one technical foul in the third quarter, so the second got him ejected from the game.
Dončić argued desperately that he was talking to a fan, but to no avail. The Lakers had to finish the game without their star point guard.
With Dončić out, the Lakers fell apart. A one-point lead turned into a 16-point defeat in just seven minutes and 42 seconds, and the potential swing in the outcome was significant for both sides. The Thunder are still fighting to clinch home-court advantage in a possible Finals matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Had the Lakers won, Oklahoma City would have led Cleveland by just one game in the loss column with three games to play.
The Lakers, meanwhile, needed two wins in their last four games to clinch the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. Now they need two in their last three. They should still be favored to do so, but it’s no gimme. They play the Mavericks on Wednesday in what will be an emotional game for Dončić as he makes his return to Dallas, and then face Houston on Friday in a game in which the Rockets may or may not rest key players. They finish the season against the Blazers, a lottery team, but one that has been competitive lately.
After the game, Dončić told reporters that he was indeed talking to a fan.
“I never got a fan ejected. Never. But if he’s going to talk, I’m going to talk back like always,” Dončić said (via Jovan Buha of The Athletic). “That had nothing to do with the ref. I didn’t really understand.”
Orr obviously didn’t take it that way. Tony Brothers, the crew chief of the game’s officiating crew, told a pool reporter that Dončić was assessed his second technical foul because he “looked directly at an official and used vulgar language.” The first technical also came because he “directed profanity at a game official,” per Brothers.
Dončić has a pretty well-known history of trash-talking fans who talk to him. A few weeks ago, for instance, he was caught on camera jawing with a fan who said “ball don’t lie” when he went to the free-throw line.
Hopefully this ejection serves as a reminder to Dončić to be careful when it comes to the officials, especially when he already has one technical foul. However, based on the video and the context, this seems like a pretty tough ejection to justify. It certainly looks as though Dončić was talking to a fan, and even if he wasn’t, this was a close game between two contenders with major playoff implications.
Nobody wants to see a superstar ejected when it is at all avoidable, and the trigger looked far too quick on this one.
