Tuesday's clash between the OKC Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans was a tightly contested affair through all 48 minutes of action. As a result of the back-and-forth nature of the contest, it should have come as no surprise to find tempers flaring up on multiple occasions.
However, a bench-clearing brush-up between Lu Dort and Jeremiah Fears after the final buzzer sounded on Oklahoma City's 104-95 win has taken center stage in postgame discussions, as fans and pundits seek insight into what led to the contentious ending.
Coach Mark Daigneault believes to know the root cause of it all.
During his press conference following the game, the headman was asked for his thoughts on the scuffle and, specifically, what he saw that he believes led to the altercation.
Right away, the oft-soft-spoken Daigneault dropped a rather surprising take on the situation, immediately casting blame on the officiating crew for letting things get out of hand.
"Two things on that. The first one is, good guys, good crew, but I thought they lost control of the game in the final minutes. I thought that altercation in the end started well before that with the Bey, Jay Will situation. I thought they could have managed that cleaner. And the second thing is, I think that was a foul on Dort. If it was, they should put a whistle on that play... If they do that, everybody stops playing, and you can legislate the situation as you normally would," Daigneault said.
Mark Daigneault blames officiating team for Thunder scuffle with Pelicans
The previous situation Daigneault referred to took place at the 1:18 mark in the fourth period, when Saddiq Bey and Jaylin Williams had to be restrained by teammates after jawing with one another following a physical in-bounds set.
After being handed offsetting technical fouls, the two were still seen exchanging pleasantries once play resumed, which even prompted the TV color commentators to question the officials' inability to separate them and defuse the situation.
Aside from Fears having to be restrained all the way back to the visiting locker room, it seems that things got back to regularly scheduled programming reletively soon after both he and Dort departed from the court.
Thunder cornerstone Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (29 points) downplayed the situation during his personal post-game presser by saying that it was likely nothing too serious that sparked the altercation in the first place and that, to him, it looked like it was no more than a "typical basketball scuffle."
All-Star forward Jalen Williams, who's currently sidelined as a result of a recently developed right hamstring strain, even joked with sideline reporter Nick Gallo after the dust settled by asking him why he didn't jump into the face-off himself.
However, with the players' attempts to turn down the temperature on the spat and halt any buzz about lingering beef between these two teams, it's a bit surprising, albeit exciting, to see coach Daigneault being the one pointing fingers.