The Oklahoma City Thunder held off the Denver Nuggets 129-126 in an NBA Game of the Year contender on Monday night at Paycom Center. It was a thrilling win for the Thunder, but the victory did feature a flagrant foul from Oklahoma City that led to shoddy commentary from the team’s television broadcast with just over a minute remaining.
Oklahoma City’s Lu Dort elbowed Denver superstar Nikola Jokić in the face while Jokić set a screen on him with 1:12 left in the fourth quarter.
Thunder color commentator Michael Cage of FanDuel Sports Network said, “Are you kidding me?! He didn’t even get hit in the face!”
“Take a look at this, folks,” Cage continued. “I gotta show it to you. Take a look at this. He gets around on the screen.”
That was followed by a period of silence after the replays showed Jokić getting hit in the face.
The national broadcast on Peacock, on the other hand, called the flagrant foul objectively.
“Jokić goes down. He took a shot to the head,” Eagle, who was excellent on the play-by-play call of the game for NBC Sports, said as the play happened.
“He gets popped there,” NBC Sports analyst Robbie Hummel said after a replay.
“You can clearly see he gets popped in the face,” NBC Sports analyst Austin Rivers said after another replay. “So, I don’t exactly know what they’re booing at.”
The incident comes after Dort tripped Jokić and was ejected from the Thunder-Nuggets game on Feb. 27.
Most fans appreciate at least a little bit of homerism on a local broadcast, but Cage’s commentary was an example of going too far beyond that and not telling the truth about what actually happened.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.