Celtics' Marcus Smart Says Players Will Protect Themselves in Fan Altercations

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart got tangled with a fan during a 96-92 loss against the Denver Nuggets, and he said after the game that the Denver fan had a few disrespectful things to say to him while he was attempting to untangle his foot from a chair and get back to the court.

"My foot got stuck in a chair, and the fan told me, 'That's right, stay on the ground, get on your knees,'" he said, per ESPN. "Excuse me? You know what I'm saying. I just told him, 'Listen, just watch the game.'"

Smart added that security did nothing, and he warned that NBA players might end up protecting themselves in such scenarios:

"I told them who it was. They just looked at him and didn't even say anything to him. ... Probably if I was a superstar, they probably would've did something for it. It is what it is.

"We're gonna end up protecting ourselves eventually, and it's not gonna be pretty for those fans. We don't want that, the league doesn't want that, we don't want that as players, but at some point you have to stand up and you gotta protect yourself as a man."

According to Matt Schubert of the Denver Post, the Nuggets security team investigated the incident but couldn't determine what had occurred and didn't take any action against the fan.

It isn't the first time in recent seasons that such an interaction has taken place between a player and a fan. Last season, the Utah Jazz permanently banned a fan from the Vivint Smart Home Arena who verbally abused Russell Westbrook—who was then with the Oklahoma City Thunder—during a game.

Westbrook said the fan and his wife told him to "get down on your knees like you're used to," which he considered to be "racial." Westbrook responded by telling the man, " I swear to God, I'll f--k you up. You and your wife, I'll f--k you up," in an exchange that went viral.

Westbrook was fined for those comments.

Based on the proximity of fans to the court, those sorts of exchanges might happen far more often than gets publicized. Fans talking trash to NBA players is nothing new, and it's a part of the game. But when the trash talk apparently turns toward racism, that level of behavior is an issue the NBA should consistently be policing when it's brought to its attention.

The fear is that players will take it upon themselves to confront such fans and will enter the stands. One of the great black eyes on the NBA in its history came 15 years ago in Detroit, when former Indiana Pacers forward Metta World Peace—then known as Ron Artest—and several of his teammates fought with fans in the infamous Malice at the Palace.

World Peace attacked a fan after he had a cup of liquid thrown on him in the aftermath of a scuffle between the teams. Preventing such an incident from ever occurring again surely is a huge priority for the NBA.