Early in the Los Angeles Lakers‘ loss to the Phoenix Suns, Anthony Davis and Dwight Howard got into a tussle on the bench that briefly turned physical. Somehow, that was not the strangest incident of the game. A fan getting ejected for slapping Rajon Rondo’s hand away from his face took the prize.
Toward the end of the third quarter, there was a delay in the game as attendants cleaned up a spill next to the court. As everyone waited for play to restart, a fan sitting courtside had some words for Rondo. It’s not clear exactly what he said, but in this video you can see the fan in the hat saying something in his direction. Rondo immediately points at him, and when play stops again a few seconds later, he points again and looks toward the referee.
A short time later the fan was ejected, though it wasn’t initially clear why because the camera had cut away. On the replay from a different angle, you can see why. Rondo continued to point at the fan and eventually started making a finger gun gesture in his face. The fan responded by slapping Rondo’s hand away, and security rushed onto the floor to usher the fan away.
We don’t know what the fan said, but it must have been pretty bad for Rondo to react in that way. And in any case you definitely cannot put your hands on a player. At the same time, Rondo wasn’t exactly helping matters by making that gesture right in the fan’s face.
All in all just a very weird interaction there, and that fan will probably not be allowed back at Lakers games. It also wouldn’t be surprising if Rondo faces some sort of punishment of his own from the league.
