OKC Thunder: Dennis Schroder, P.J. Tucker fined $25k for altercation

The OKC Thunder blowout Game 5 loss was partially due to Dennis Schroder’s ejection as the Sixth Man continues to pay for the altercation.

It was one of those games where nothing went right for the OKC Thunder. The club scored only 80 points which isn’t going to capture many victories in this era of basketball. Although Dennis Schroder began the game on fire scoring 19 points he played barely three minutes in the second half.

That’s because the Sixth Man finalist got into an altercation with P.J. Tucker which resulted in both being ejected.  Schroder hit Tucker below the belt in what the officials deemed was an action delivered on purpose. A review of the play shows Tucker committed an illegal screen.

After Tucker got hit he reacted by coming up behind Schroder and head butting him from behind. The officials reviewed the entire sequence of events and tossed both from the game.

Schroder sure has an eventful month with the birth of his daughter, leaving and returning to the bubble, and now this.

Dennis Schroder and PJ Tucker fined by NBA

Yet, that didn’t stop the focus on those events as the Rockets kept pushing post-game for more action by the NBA. This was the second time this series Houston tried to get the NBA involved. Earlier in the series, Chris Paul inadvertently hit a Rocket player below the belt and the Rockets kept discussing it afterwar emploring the NBA to get involved.

In post-game interviews, D’Antoni referred to the incident but downplayed Tucker’s head butt calling it a “tap”. That’s the problem with these types of circumstances because each side will protect their own and only see how their side was affected. That said, Billy Donovan took more of the middle road.

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The irony is the Rockets focus on these events likely cost their player quite literally as the league did do what Houston wanted but it effected both Schroder and Tucker. The NBA fined both players $25 thousand dollars. Fortunately, neither will miss any further games with additional suspensions which is what Houston was trying to force to happen.

The OKC Thunder has dealt with these types of specific ‘below the belt’ situations in the playoffs themselves on repeated occasions.

In the 2016 series between the Thunder and Warriors’ Draymond Green hit Steven Adams twice in the kiwis. The second occasion came courtesy of a kick. In that instance, Green did pick up a flagrant one foul at the time. In hindsight, the league reviewed the action and upgraded the foul to a flagrant two, but since that happened after the game he wasn’t suspended. Green was also fined $25k.

Ultimately, it feels like the Rockets pushed this incident far too much between the initial Paul situation and then this Schroder incident. Based on Draymond Green’s incident it was clear Schroder was unlikely to have to miss another game since Green’s kick was far more egregious and he didn’t miss any games. It was a can of worms the Rockets opened and if you’re PJ Tucker you might want to remind your team of that fact.

The OKC Thunder will play the Rockets Monday night at 9:00 p.m. (or 8:00 p.m. CT) needing a win to force the series to a series-deciding Game 7.