Miles Bridges on hitting girl with mouthpiece: ‘Unacceptable on my part’

Miles Bridges was frustrated. He had just gotten ejected from the Hornets’ play-in loss to the Hawks last night. Charlotte’s season was nearly finished. An Atlanta fan was heckling him.

So, Bridges whipped his mouthpiece at the man from pointblank range.

But Bridges missed.

In a scene reminiscent of Charles Barkley spitting on a little girl while aiming for a heckler in 1991, the mouthpiece flew right past Bridges’ intended target and into a girl’s face.

Scott Fowler of The Charlotte Observer:

The mouthpiece that Miles Bridges threw into the stands was still sitting there 10 minutes later - kind of hard to see but here it is.
He hit a 16-year-old girl, who didn’t want to give her name. The section of people around there had one basic description of the act:
Gross. pic.twitter.com/swWYrvyXsE

— Scott Fowler (@scott_fowler) April 14, 2022

Bridges:

I was upset about a call – a couple of calls, really – and I let my temper get the best of me. That was definitely the wrong thing to do, throwing my mouthpiece. I was aiming for the guy that was screaming at me, and it hit a little girl. So, that’s definitely unacceptable on my part, and I take full responsibility. I’m ready for any consequences that the NBA gives me. That’s on me. That’s out of character for me. You’ve been around me. I don’t act like that or never flash out like that. So, that was definitely wrong. A lot of emotions and hopefully I can get in contact with the young girl and sincerely apologize to her and do something nice for her. But that’s definitely on me.

I normally don’t let my emotions get the best of me. And for me to be in one of the biggest games I’ve ever played in and that happens, that’s unacceptable for me. That gives a bad image to my name and to who I am as a person, and that’s on me. Especially hitting a little girl, that’s terrible. I like to right my wrongs. So, I apologize, for sure.

The standard fine has been $25,000 for a player throwing his mouthpiece into the stands. Stephen Curry got docked $50,000 for throwing his mouthpiece toward an official. Barkley got suspended one game and fined $10,000 for his incident. But that was a different time.

We’ll see how the league punishes Bridges.

At this point, there’s nothing left for him to do but accept responsibility, apologize, try to make it right with the girl and try to handle his frustrations better next time. It sounds like he’s on the right track so far.