You see this quite a bit in other sports, but you almost never see this in the NBA. Late in the first half of Sunday’s Game 4 between the Lakers and the Nuggets, a woman wandered onto the court, seemingly aimless in her intentions. Thankfully, security picked her up before she was able to make contact with anyone involved in the contest, and play resumed shortly without incident.
This person apparently had a history with the Denver Nuggets organization, as Craig Sager reported during the TNT telecast (as transcribed by Deadspin):
“The woman apparently randomly walking on to the floor. However this lady has a history with the Nuggets. I talked to a couple detectives, Detective Todd Eriksson who grabbed her and walked her off the court. Said several years ago she was found stalking, following several players, basically banned from the arena. She got in tonight. Taken off. Taken over to the security area back here where — where, supervisor of the police department, Sergeant Larry Subia, obviously handled the case.”
She was arrested and cited for trespassing, before being released.
Having been in many NBA arenas with an all-access media pass, I can tell you that overall, the security inside is far from what it should be. The majority of the people who would be the ones to stop you from gaining access to places where you don’t belong range from the elderly to the disinterested, with the majority of these folks being easily distracted.
Luckily, nothing came of this situation beyond the brief but embarrassing video clip you see above. But it should serve as a wake-up call to arena security around the league, especially as the playoffs progress to the point where the game’s biggest stars are involved, and the national television ratings are at their high point of the season.