Hecklers finally got to Atlanta Hawks big man Dwight Howard, who needed to be restrained at the Staples Center on Sunday night. With the Hawks in town to play the Lakers, Howard's former team, TMZ reports a fan near the locker-room tunnel called Howard "a bitch" as he walked past. Howard responded by turning and lunging toward the grandstand, challenging the fan to a fight, if only he would "come back here and say it" to his face. Security stepped in before it got uglier.
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Howard might have ignored the fan—he seemed to laugh it off earlier in the evening when another taunted him with chants of "Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!"—but TMZ speculates that it's the culmination of heckling, and specifically an incident a week earlier, that lit Howard's fuse:It all went down on Nov. 23rd after Dwight's ATL Hawks beat the Pacers in Indiana -- when a fan leaned over the tunnel to the locker room and said, "Good game, Dwight. Have a nice evening. Your mother's a whore!"Dwight clearly heard it -- but turned and walked away.So, it doesn't only happen on Twitter. Seriously, why do supposed adults behave like this and say these things? It's easy for us to tell the athletes to tune out unruly fans—because they do, most of the time—but humans are only…human. After the game, which was a blowout win for the Lakers, reporters asked Howard about heckling fans in general. Howard isn't remembered fondly in Los Angeles for his one-season stint with the Lakers:Why they playing Dwight Howard like this??? "Should have stayed wit the lakers… KOBE ALL DAY.. KOBE KOBE KOBE" pic.twitter.com/vgRg2FGBC3
— DJ Akademiks (@IamAkademiks) November 28, 2016
Howard hears them, all right. He hears them. And they'll only get louder the next time Howard returns to Staples Center, after he gave in and gave the heckler the attention he was craving.Some postgame thoughts from chatterbox Dwight Howard, who was booed every time he touched the ball tonight in LA. pic.twitter.com/vUHfgjFjiu
— Bill Oram (@billoram) November 28, 2016