Mark Daigneault sounds off on controversial call during Thunder loss to Warriors

Sunday night, the Thunder and Warriors participated in a highly competitive matchup that, unfortunately, saw Oklahoma City succumb to their second loss of the 2024-25 campaign, dropping by a final score of 127-116.

Post-game, emotions were certainly heightened due to the numerous hardships endured during the night.

From allowing Golden State to shoot nearly 50.0 percent from distance to, objectively the most devastating, Chet Holmgren sustaining a grueling right iliac wing fracture that will leave him sidelined for eight to ten weeks, there were many things OKC could look back on as aiding in their unfortunate demise.

However, of all the things that didn't go the way the Thunder needed them to, coach Mark Daigneault highlighted one extremely controversial and costly chain of events, in particular, during his post-game media session.

Mark Daigneault highlights controversial call during Thunder vs. Warriors

Amid their fourth-quarter comeback attempt, one where the Thunder stormed back from a 28-point deficit heading into the final period to cut Golden State's lead to as little as seven points, Luguentz Dort and Draymond Green got into a tie-up situation that initially was called for "illegal contact" on the guard.

However, Dort was clearly smacked in the head by Green during the ordeal, which forced coach Daigneault to use his challenge, where, upon further review, it was deemed that the Warriors star committed an "unsportman-like flail," which resulted in a dead ball technical foul.

Though the headman suggested that, while he may disagree with the offensive foul call on the floor, he respects the fact that the refs made "their call." However, he wouldn't hold back from stressing his "frustration" over how the play wasn't organically reviewed by the officials, and that it took him using his challenge for them to take another look to see Green's wrongdoing.

"My frustation was they called an offensive foul on Dort. Any time a guy gets hit in the head with an elbow, regardless of whether it's a flail or whatever, that's a replay trigger. They can look at that and 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. So, my frustration was, I have to use a coaches challenge to go look at a play that they could have triggered anyway," Daigneault said.

Of course, the Thunder coach's frustrations weren't just a matter of him unnecessarily using his challenge to force the officiating team to look back on a play they could have done of their own accord.

Had they done so, he would have been able to use it a few minutes later on a highly contested call where the Warriors were rewarded possession despite Stephen Curry seemingly touching a loose ball last before heading out of bounds. He would go on to splash home a triple (made seven on the night) right after and, in turn, extend Golden State's lead even further.

During his much deserved tirade, Daigneault made it abundantly clear on multiple instances that his frustration wasn't "an interpretation thing" when it came to foul calls, saying "they're professionals, they know how to interpret the plays," but, rather, over the fact that he wants them "to run the game."

"If there's a guy getting hit in the head like that, they gotta go look at it. If they did, they would have found a technical foul, I would have had a challenge in my pocket, if I would have challenged the Curry play we would have had the ball instead of giving up a three," Daigneault said.

In the end, however, Daigneault stressed that officiating was not the overarching reason why they lost to the Warriors, highlighting the fact that the Thunder need to "play better defense" moving forward.

Still, to say the refs' decision not to look back on the initial call on Dort while momentum was seemingly shifting in OKC's favor didn't influence the game, even slightly, would be a bit of a stretch.