NBA players have become the brunt of being heckled by fans over the past few years. During the Brooklyn Nets‘ 110-98 win over the New York Knicks on Wednesday, star guard Kyrie Irving became the latest victim. He found himself being heckled by a fan in the crowd as he was walking to the locker room at halftime.
Irving tapped the fan that he believed was the heckler on the shoulder, but it turned out to be a different person that was actually heckling him. The Nets star ended up apologizing to the fan that he tapped, as television cameras caught a fan holding their cell phone exchanging words with Irving.
Here’s what Irving said after the game about the heckling:
“East coast basketball at its finest. People just yelling random s— from the crowd. Wanted a reaction, they got one,” . “I think I tapped the wrong person, so I apologize to the random guy that I tapped. He looked at me with a surprising look on his face. … Somebody said something and I was just fed up with our performance.
“And I’ve dealt with just East Coast type of attitude since I was 7, 8 years old. So I’ve been in the trenches, as they would say, growing up, playing in different boroughs, being a Jersey kid not getting respect from New York basketball until I just stopped giving an eff about what their opinion was.”
The Nets were trailing by 17 points to their crosstown rivals at halftime, so Irving was extremely frustrated with what was taking place on the court. Irving did manage to finish with 24 points to go along with seven assists and seven rebounds as the Nets rallied to earn the pivotal victory.
Brooklyn currently sits in eighth place in the Eastern Conference standings and will be participating in the play-in tournament when the postseason begins later this month.
