Montrezl Harrell discusses problem with fan originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
After Montrezl Harrell fouled out of Saturday’s thrilling win over the Celtics, he’d heard enough.
There was a fan behind the team’s bench in a Larry Bird jersey that had made his voice heard for a while. And Harrell had enough.
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“I understand it’s a heated situation, I understand you’re cheering for your team and stuff like that, but leave it there,” Harrell said postgame. “Leave it just cheering for your team. Once you start to talk to us, and then we retaliate, we get fined. Nobody says nothing to the fan and the fan continues to keep coming and be able to say whatever he wants freely. No, that’s not the way it’s supposed to go.”
During last year’s playoffs, fan conduct came into question across the NBA when a fan threw popcorn on Russell Westbrook in Philadelphia, a fan ran onto the floor at Capital One Arena, amongst other issues across the league.
“If we’re going to be punished on our end for what we say to them, then they need to be punished the same exact way,” Harrell said. “I didn’t even get back and forth jawing. I said my piece, and once I saw he wasn’t gonna stop, get him outta here, man. Don’t have time for that. Go sit behind Boston’s bench if you wanna do that. We’re not going to keep hearing that behind our bench. This is our home arena, not Boston’s arena.”
The Wizards pulled out a 115-112 double overtime win to move to 5-1 on the season for the first time since 2005 and for just the third time in franchise history.
