Mitch Johnson Reveals Thoughts on Fight During Spurs-Thunder

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Jonah Kubicek | Last updated Mar 3, 2025 11:47 AM ET

Near the end of the third quarter in a close game between the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder, Kenrich Williams took exception to Julian Champagnie making contact with him and pushed him off the court, resulting in a massive scuffle. While no punches were thrown, it was one of the larger frays seen in the league this season, and Lu Dort joined Williams and Champagnie in getting ejected from the game.

Interestingly enough, Spurs' forward Jeremy Sochan, who manhandled Dort, making him look small, stayed in the game. Watching the film of the incident, it makes sense, as he didn't seem to escalate anything.

Sochan has a reputation around the league as an instigator and enforcer dating back to his rookie season, and he seems to relish a chance to get under the skin of his opponents.

After the game, acting head coach Mitch Johnson explained what he saw. He was one of the first people in the scrum, separating Champagnie from Williams.

"When people are aggressive, there's a lot of these incidental elbows or contact," explained Johnson. "I don't really know who's at fault, to be honest. But it just looked like that was what initiated it, and then there was some response on both ends. I didn't think much of it. People were just protecting their guys and whatnot, but I didn't think it was anything intentional. And I didn't look at discrepancy, if they should have gotten thrown out or not. But the initial basketball play I did see looked like Kenrich Williams was being aggressive, and Julian was opening up."