Philadelphia loves a passionate fan. Nobody likes a fan who crosses the line, however.
So it was unfortunate to see a Philly fan sitting courtside at the Wells Fargo Center on Monday night get ejected from the game after having an interaction with Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell late in the fourth quarter when the game was already decided.
Mitchell was asked about the fan following the game.
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"He was being disrespectful," Mitchell said. "I like Philly. I think talking trash, I appreciate it, part of the game. When you start talking personal stuff, that's when things get out of control. Joe [Ingles] had my back. It is what it is. I won't repeat what [the fan said]. You could tell he had a little too much [to drink] for sure."
Beat reporter for the PhillyVoice, Kyle Neubeck, tweeted that "my understanding from asking around is the fan ejected for words exchanged with Donovan Mitchell tonight was in the excessive drunk/loud idiot category, not anything of a more problematic nature (e.g. racist, homophobic, etc.)."
As you can see from the above video of the ejection, which includes new angles from NBC Sports Philadelphia cameras, it appears a number of the fans sitting around the ejected fan were happy to see him go.
That's about all of the reported info we have from those who cover the team. If you want to dig into the unsubstantiated territory, a reddit user claiming to be the ejected fan shared his alleged side of the story. The reddit user claims to have had some words with Mitchell, pointing out Ben Simmons' dominance over him in head-to-head games, and claims to have used the word "punk." The alleged fan -- who claims he wasn't intoxicated -- also says they were not actually his seats which would make sense given the cost of such seats.
NBA
Our cameras show that he was actually only in that seat for approximately 7 real-time minutes and first sat down there with 3:07 remaining in the fourth quarter. There was a different fan in that seat most of the game.
Take that story with all the grains of salt on a good Philly soft pretzel. My gut says to never trust a random internet user who you've never heard of before.
True or not, it appears security handled the situation properly and that fan won't be seen courtside anytime soon.
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