Gilgeous-Alexander scores 36 in return, tempers flare as Thunder top Nuggets 127-121 in OT

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 36 points in his return after missing nine games with an abdominal strain and the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Denver Nuggets 127-121 in overtime Friday night in a testy matchup that featured multiple technical fouls and an ejection.

Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, didn't play in overtime, but the Thunder still pulled through in the extra period.

Denver's Nikola Jokic, who got into an altercation with Oklahoma City's Lu Dort in the fourth quarter, had 23 points, 17 rebounds and 14 assists. Dort was ejected for a Flagrant 2 foul.

Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, listed as questionable with an illness before the game, led the Nuggets with 39 points.

Gilgeous-Alexander started and drew loud applause when his name was announced in pregame introductions. His first basket came on a driving layup two minutes into the game.

The teams are very familiar with each other — the Thunder defeated the Nuggets 4-3 in the Western Conference semifinals last year. The Thunder won the first two meetings this season and they play twice more.

This matchup was physical from the start. Gilgeous-Alexander was called for an early technical because he threw the ball at Jokic, who made contact with him after play stopped. Denver's bench was called for a technical in the third quarter. There was plenty of talking and shoving throughout.

Gilgeous-Alexander scored 18 points in the first half, but Denver led 59-50 after making 11 of 20 3-pointers before the break.

Gilgeous-Alexander scored 14 points in the third quarter to help the Thunder chip away, but the Nuggets took an 83-77 lead into the fourth.

The Thunder started off hot in the fourth quarter, and Dort's 3-pointer finally put Oklahoma City up 86-85.

A few minutes later, Dort was ejected for a hard foul against Jokic that led to a scrum near midcourt and offsetting technicals on Jokic and Oklahoma City's Jaylin Williams.

Fittingly, the tightly contested game went to overtime tied at 107.

Nuggets: Host Minnesota on Sunday.

Thunder: At Dallas on Sunday.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Luguentz Dort, back, tries to steal the ball from Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic, left, drives past Oklahoma City Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jaylin Williams (6) falls into Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) as he goes after a rebound during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, top, shoots over Denver Nuggets guard Christian Braun, left, and guard Jamal Murray (27) during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed off on a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate President Donald Trump's allies for alleged political prosecution, he may have pleased his boss.

But the eyebrow-raising move — the latest in his push to prove his loyalty to Trump — has agitated the same Republican lawmakers if he is nominated for the permanent job.

Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a succession of splashy steps the Justice Department has taken under his watch since he took the position on an acting basis last month, including an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, has left no doubt about the impression he’s hoping to make on the president who appointed him.

The fund in particular has put Blanche at the center of a Republican firestorm at a time when he aims to establish himself as the perfect person for the job for the remainder of Trump’s term. And it sharpened concerns from Democrats and other Blanche critics that he has not shed his mantle as the president’s personal attorney.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, said in a statement.

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump's defense team, including during the Republican's hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

He was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job, then was elevated last month after Trump ousted Pam Bondi.

Now he finds himself the latest Trump-appointed attorney general to simultaneously confront expectations from subordinates to uphold institutional norms and demands from the president to do his bidding.

Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was forced out after the 2018 midterms after infuriating the president over his recusal from an investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign. Another, William Barr, resigned after their relationship fizzled over Barr's refusal to back Trump's baseless claims of massive election fraud. Bondi was removed after struggling to bring successful prosecutions against Trump's political opponents.

Two weeks after becoming acting attorney general, Blanche announced the appointment of Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to a special position inside the department. He'll oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

“At some point, at the right time, that will be made public and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade," Blanche told Fox News.

Prior government reviews of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, a centerpiece of the current conspiracy investigation, have failed to produce criminal charges against senior officials or evidence of criminal conduct by them. It's not clear what, if any, new information the continuing investigation has developed.

The Justice Department also last month obtained an indictment charging Comey, a Trump foe whose prosecution the president has long called for, with threatening Trump through a social media photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47" — a case legal experts say will be challenging for prosecutors. Comey has said he wouldn't be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments.

In other moves, Blanche announced an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that has been the target of conservative outrage, with misleading donors about its activities, and has publicly defended a Justice Department crackdown on leaks to the news media, including subpoenas to reporters.

Arguably the most audacious demonstration of loyalty to Trump came this week when the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who feel they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted, coupled with a guarantee of immunity from tax audits for Trump and his eldest sons.

As Republican concerns grew, Blanche held a tense meeting with GOP lawmakers Thursday. Shortly afterward, Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies.

Blanche, who defended the fund at a congressional hearing this week, has said anyone who believes they've been persecuted can apply for compensation regardless of political affiliation. But the fund has been widely understood as a boon to Trump allies investigated during the Biden administration.

“It’s pretty clear that he’s not the attorney general for the United States as much as he's the attorney general for President Trump,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and senior Justice Department official in the 1980s. He said Blanche would get an A+ if report cards were issued for fealty to Trump.

David Laufman, a former chief of staff to the deputy attorney general in President George W. Bush's administration, said that rather than protecting the Justice Department's independence, Blanche has been a “willing and ardent accomplice for carrying out any partisan or corrupt scheme the White House may devise.”

Blanche’s supporters dismiss the suggestion he is trying to curry favor with Trump to secure the permanent job.

“What he is doing is he is seeking justice based on facts and the law,” said Jay Town, who served as a U.S. attorney in Alabama during the first Trump administration. “And I don’t think that will ever change about him, whether he is the attorney general going forward or doesn’t spend another day in the administration. He is an honorable man and anybody that knows him knows that to be true.”

Blanche also says he is not angling to keep his job or feeling pressure to placate Trump.

He has told reporters he would be honored to be nominated but, "if he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ I don’t have any goals or aspirations beyond that.”

In recent days, he's functioned as the fund's public face and most visible defender, a role consistent with his comfort in the spotlight. He sometimes holds multiple press conferences a week and grants interviews to a variety of news outlets, a contrast to Bondi, who largely stuck to Fox News appearances.

His defenders say his experience as a federal prosecutor has made him a more sophisticated communicator for the department than Bondi, but his statements have at times invited backlash, including his refusal to rule out that violent Jan. 6 rioters could be eligible for payouts.

Though Blanche will appoint the five commissioners tasked with processing claims, his precise role in the fund’s implementation is unclear. He told CNN it was developed through negotiations with Trump’s private lawyers, not him.

For some Democrats, that's a difference without a distinction.

“Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told Blanche during a combative exchange in the Senate hearing, "and that's the whole problem."

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)