During the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 94-87 loss against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday, Lu Dort got into a bit of a flutter with Kevin Love in the fourth quarter. During a tie-up for a loose ball with Darius Garland, Dort swung his arms to untangle himself. As he did that, Love was near him and got accidentally elbowed by Dort.
Dort and Love would start chatting it up and needed to be separated by their teammates. This included Josh Giddey, who got hit in the face by Love.
The referees would review the play and rule a flagrant two on Dort. This means that Dort would be ejected for the rest of the game and finished the night with 10 points in 32 minutes.
Now, according to the official rulebook, the NBA defines a flagrant two as an “unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent.” I’m not a referee, but looking at multiple replays, it looks like Dort’s elbow was unintentional and barely landed on Love’s upper torso.
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said that he did not think the swing was malicious and said he would have understood if the referees ruled it a flagrant one but did not necessarily agree with the flagrant two ruling.
Now in my opinion, I did not think the hit was excessive at all. Could it have been a flagrant one? Sure. But a flagrant two? I have a hard time seeing that. And it appears that a lot of Thunder Twitter agreed with my sentiment:
