Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving is no stranger to heckling, as he sees it everywhere he turns. Nonetheless, Kyrie — and not for the first time this season — seems to have taken serious issue with comments directed him by a fan and saw to it that they were removed from the arena.
In the clip below, Irving can be seen walking the length of the court and heads towards a man wearing a Washington Redskins ball cap and a D.C. United jersey. The man, a middle-aged fellow, appears to be taken aback by security’s attempts to escort him from the game.
Kyrie Irving just had this Hornets fan who was heckling him ejected from the game pic.twitter.com/CKRHZ40o0M
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) March 26, 2023
Interestingly, nobody seated next to the man seemed to want to come to his defense.
While it’s unclear what the fan said or what exchange was made to make Kyrie direct arena officials to remove him from the game, it is notable that man was wearing a hat that may have offended Irving. The hat features a now defunct logo of the franchise renamed to the Washington Commandeers in order to distance themself from a derogatory slur directed towards Native Americans.
The Cleveland Guardians, formerly called the Cleveland Indians, were the first professional sports team to make the change to their franchises name for that reason.
Irving is an official member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Perhaps the removal of the fan did cause a shift in the game though. While the Mavs still fell to the Hornets, what was once a 27-point shrunk to six points by the end of the game.
Irving would finish with 18 points on 5-15 shooting from the field, along with three assists, two steals, and one block. However, he went 3-of-5 from the field in the fourth quarter after going 0-from-3 in the third quarter.
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