The Thunder play hard and physical, but they won’t lose by technical knockout

OKLAHOMA CITY — The worst display of bad behaviour, at least in the NBA’s eyes, exhibited by Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander this season happened on Jan. 12.

Thunder teammate Alex Ducas made a 3-pointer with 2:55 left in a blowout win over Washington — the first points of his NBA career, a shot that happened right in front of the Oklahoma City bench. Gilgeous-Alexander jumped out of his seat in celebration and waved a towel. The problem was, the towel appeared to make contact with Washington’s Jared Butler.

That less-than-egregious crime was the only technical foul called on Gilgeous-Alexander this season — and Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Saturday that it wound up being rescinded, too.

For a team that embraces physicality on defense, scores a ton of points on offense and isn’t afraid to commit fouls — it is averaging 20.2 per game this season when including the playoffs, the fifth-highest rate in the NBA going into Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night — the Thunder simply do not cross the line.

By the NBA’s count, they have 18 technical fouls in the regular season and playoffs; that goes to 21 when adding in the NBA Cup championship game, which is considered an exhibition and doesn’t go into the stats.

“First of all, I respect the officials. I think our team respects the officials,” Daigneault said. “We understand that it’s an imperfect job. It’s not going to be perfect. They are trying to get it right. We really just try to focus on what we can control, not because of anything other than that’s the best pathway to play your best and it’s the best pathway to win. We have hopefully a culture of focusing on what we can control and blocking everything else out.”

Of the 18 technical fouls on the Thunder in the regular season and playoffs, only nine were for interactions with referees.

Gilgeous-Alexander almost didn’t know how to react when he got the technical foul in Washington. In the first three years of his career, he got zero technicals. He had one in Year 4; it was eventually rescinded.

By Gilgeous-Alexander’s standards, he’s been on a wave of misbehaviour in the three years since.

Gilgeous-Alexander has been hit with five technical fouls in the last three years — two in the 2022-23 regular season, two in last season’s playoffs and then the towel wave that went awry this season. Over the last seven seasons, only Harrison Barnes and Jrue Holiday have played more minutes than Gilgeous-Alexander with fewer technicals.

“I was hotheaded as a kid,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “As I’ve grown, I’ve just understood that getting too high or getting too low, especially in competition, doesn’t really help me, for sure. So, I try to be as even-keeled as possible.”

The NBA said the Thunder have been called for three technicals in the playoffs, two by Isaiah Hartenstein and one by Chet Holmgren. Neither player had one during the regular season, and nobody on the Thunder had more than four.

“The way I see it, techs is points. I don’t ever want to give a team points because I can’t control my emotions,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So, I control them. It’s that simple to me.”