Thunder's Mark Daigneault gets real about Draymond Green's hit on Lu Dort

11/11/2024 08:42 AM

During the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors game, Draymond Green and Lu Dort got tangled up during a play. Green ended up swiping his arm around Dort’s head, and head coach Mark Daigneault used his coach’s challenge after Dort was called for the foul.

Draymond Green received a technical foul on this play after getting into it with Lu Dort pic.twitter.com/YErn7OT0Uw

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) November 11, 2024

After the review, Dort was still called for the foul, but Green was assessed a technical foul. After the call, Daigneault was seen speaking with the referee, and following the game, he shared his frustration about the call.

“They looked at the play, that’s their call,” Daigneault said. “My frustration was they called an offensive foul on Dort. Anytime a guy gets hit in the head with an elbow, regardless if it is a flail or whatever, that’s a replay trigger. They can look at that. If they don’t know what happened, but two guys kind of square up at the end of a play, they should go look at it. There’s nothing that prevents them from looking at it.

“My frustration is that I have to use a coach’s challenge to go look at a play that they could’ve triggered anyway. We get the technical foul, which confirms that if they had looked at it without my challenge, they would’ve granted a technical foul.”

Mark Daigneault on the explanation he was given for the unsportsmanlike flail on Draymond Green.

Mark also discussed how the lack of that play triggering a replay had a ripple on OKC's ability to challenge a different play later on.

Question by: @AndrewKSchlechtpic.twitter.com/cQzcjflwVv

— Michael Martin (@MichaelOnSports) November 11, 2024

Daigneault mentioned that two minutes later, the ball went off Stephen Curry’s arm and they granted the Warriors the ball, but he wasn’t able to challenge it because he had already used his challenge.

Draymond Green calls out Thunder’s postgame interview routine

Prior to their matchup, Draymond Green called out the Thunder’s postgame routine, where all of the players are in the interview and they start barking.

"The one thing I see about the OKC team that's alarming to me is their postgame,” Green said on his podcast. Seven guys in the interview. There's a certain seriousness it takes to win in this league. And there's a certain fear you have to instill in teams in order to win. I just don't know if they're instilling that fear in teams with all the bromance and stuff after the game.”

Ironically, Lu Dort was asked about Green’s comments, and he disagreed with them, saying that they’re just having fun.

"I don't think this has anything to do with how we act after a game," Dort said. "At the end of the day, we're going to play the way we play. If a team fears us or not, we're going to keep doing what we're doing. And do everything we can to stack wins. However we do that, we're going to focus on how we want to win games."

The Thunder have been doing the routine since last season, and they’ve been winning games at the same time, so it shouldn’t be too much of a big deal.

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