NBA
WATCH: Clippers star Russell Westbrook confronts fan after intense clash: ‘Watch your mouth, motherf**ker’
Antonio is a life long sports enthusiast and professional journalist, who shares an obssesive urge to find and dig up the most interesting facts to guide gamblers towards more exciting, yet safe bets. In his own words, ''you can never really know enough about the things you love''.
All posts by Antonio KozlowUpdated17 Apr 2023
During halftime of Game 1 of the NBA Playoff series between the Clippers and the Suns, Russell Westbrook has confronted a fan in heated scenes while walking to the locker room.
Footage of the incident has surfaced on social media where there’s a man wearing a hat eating some snacks during the break, as the point guard is held by a security guard while saying: “Watch your mouth!”
Even though the clip doesn’t show what was said to Westbrook before he got angry, it only shows the player’s confrontation before he walks off to the locker room. Take a look at the video and judge it yourselves:
@wojespn Seems reasonable for a halftime fan engagement pic.twitter.com/77F82mXMDh
— Blake Christopher (@BCH66223) April 17, 2023
As seen in the footage, the man replied: “Take it like a man”. To which Westbrooked responded again: “Watch your mouth motherf**ker, watch your mouth”.
“Talk about it, be about it!” the man kept yelling with his friends while the veteran star headed back down the tunnel.
The Clippers guard finally had the last laugh, as he led his team to a 115-11o victory in Arizona. The star compensated his poor shooting (dropped only 3 from 19 from the field) with a strong clutch performance including the game-sealing block on Devin Booker and two key free throws in the final minute.
Seems like the 34-year-old felt he had something to prove after his confrontation with the fans at halftime finishing the game with 9 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocks.
The Los Angeles team’s triumph was accompanied by Kawhi Leonard’s 38 points during the match, 13 of them turned vital in the last quarter. Eric Gordon contributed with 19 points, 14 from Norman Powell, Ivica Zubac’s 12, and 10 from Terrance Mann.
This victory comes without Clippers forward Paul George, whose been out with a sprained right knee and is still questionable for the rest of the playoffs.
On the other side of the court, Kevin Durant led his team with 27 points, adding 11 assists, and 9 rebounds to his stat line. Unfortunately for him, this meant his first ever loss wearing the Phoenix jersey.
Behind him came Devin Booker with 26 points to his name, while Chris Paul added 7 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists to the Suns’ case.
The team from Arizona have placed all of their NBA Championship aspirations over Durant’s shoulders, as they acquired him during the last trade deadline from Brooklyn. This comes after the team lost the 2021/22 Finals against Milwaukee, and were later beaten by Dallas in the conference’s semi-final last season after holding the league’s strongest record up to that point.
Phoenix are well aware of the situation that happened between Westbrook and the fan
According to Arizona Republic’s Duane Rankin, Phoenix is conducting an investigation. “We are aware of the incident that happened tonight and are conducting a review,” the Suns said in a statement.
The situation has been hot on social media, as the press has also taken a part reporting about the incident. Check out as Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe also dug into Westbrook’s confrontation in today’s edition of “Undisputed”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOXY02NW5jw
“This is a VIP section bar area, that’s normally occupied by fans, which started during the pandemic when there were no fans available,” Sharpe explained. “Players started cutting through this area to get to the locker room. Now that fans are back, cut it out.”
The broadcaster went on to say that the Phoenix administration shouldn’t let players walk through this VIP section because it is simply asking for trouble.
