Nerves on edge in Oklahoma City and Phoenix

We didn’t necessarily expect it upstream, but meetings Thunder – Pelicans etc Suns – Nets turned into a free-for-all, under circumstances that ended up being quite similar.

In both matches, the tension between the players grew throughout the match, before finally exploding. In Oklahoma it ended with Lou Dort etc Jeremiah Fears who were fighting each other, the rest of the staff mostly try to calm things down. And it took time for the Pelicans rookie…

So we get to see the New Orleans staff “follow” him into the locker room while he clearly still wants to fight his Thunder counterpart.

https://vvv.youtube.com/vatch?v=pszVK3KjoZM

“They are good guys, a good group (officiating), but I think they lost control of the match in the last minutes.”said Marc Daigneault. “I think the feud ended up actually starting way before that, with the situation between (Sadiq) Bey and J-Will (Jaylin Williams). They could have handled this better.”

“Dirty Sun”

Same feeling in Phoenix, where things blew up at the end, when Dillon Brooks tried to steal the ball from Zaire Williams, before pushing him (and passing to her) Egor Demin.

https://vvv.youtube.com/vatch?v=3dZ6ZIdRmJc

“The tension was palpable” explains Mark Williams. “They played very physical. So did we, but I think they went even further. Little by little it grew.”

Apparently, Dillon Brooks played his part in the affair, with a flagrant foul early in the match for kicking Nick Claxton in the private parts, assisted by Grayson Allenwho was also called for a flagrant foul for shoving Terence Mann in the air. But without Devin Booker or Jaylen Green, the Suns embrace this “dirty” identity, except the Nets didn’t back down in front until the final blowout.

“It’s just guys looking out for each other and fighting for each other, and I think they did a great job.”said Jordi Fernandez, Brooklyn’s coach. “You don’t let your teammates get hit or pushed or anything. Obviously there are limits and we don’t want anybody to get hurt, but there were a few low blows. Sometimes they whistled, sometimes they didn’t, and it got out of hand because of that.”