You'd think that Boston sports fans, eager to right a reputation for racism against opponents, wouldn't want to prove Kyrie Irving correct in calling them out.
But less than a week removed from his comments, and from incidents of three other players being targets of harassment from fans during the NBA Playoffs, one brilliant Celtics fan decided to do just that.
A spectator had to be removed from TD Garden on Friday following Brooklyn's Game 4 win over Boston for throwing what appeared to be a water bottle at the guard's head.
Rightfully so, Irving had a passionate response. Here's what he told reporters in his postgame media availability:
It's unfortunate that sports has come to a lot of this kind of crossroads where you're seeing in a lot of old ways come up. It's been that way a history, and in terms of entertainment, performers and sports for a long period of time and just underlying racism, and just treating people like they're in a human zoo, you know? Throwing stuff at people, saying things, you know, there's a certain point where it just gets to be too much. So, you know, I called it out. I just wanted to keep it strictly basketball and then you just see that people just feel very entitled out here. They pay for the tickets, great. I'm grateful that you're coming in to watch a great performance but it's just, we're not at the theater. We're not throwing tomatoes and other random stuff at the people that are performing, you know, it's too much. And it's a reflection on us as a whole. When you have fans acting like that so, hopefully, people learn their lessons from being banned for however many years or being arrested but you know there's always going to be an occasion.
The fan accused of the idiotic act was arrested by Boston Police and will be banned from TD Garden for life.
