After Kyrie Irving said he hopes Boston fans don’t revert to racism when their series moves to Boston, Marcus Smart said he’s heard racist comments from Celtics fans.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it. I’ve hard a couple of things,” Smart said Thursday when asked about Irving’s comments.” It’s hard to hear that and then have them support us as players. It’s kind of sad and sickening.”
As the first round series between the Celtics and the Brooklyn Nets moves back to Boston, Irving said he hopes fans can keep it “strictly basketball.”
“I am just looking forward to competing with my teammates and hopefully, we can just keep it strictly basketball; there’s no belligerence or racism going on – subtle racism,” Irving said. “People yelling sh*t from the crowd, but even if it is, it’s part of the nature of the game and we’re just going to focus on what we can control.”
Celtics GM Danny Ainge has since responded to Irving’s comments, saying he’s “never heard that from Celtics players in my 26 years in Boston.”
“I think that we take those kind of things seriously. I never heard any of that, from any player that I’ve ever played with in my 26 years in Boston,”he said, per NBC Sports. “I never heard that before from Kyrie, and I talked to him quite a bit. So, I don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter. We’re just playing basketball. Players can say what they want.”
This isn’t the first time Smart has commented on the racial climate in Boston. In October of last year, Smart recounted an incident in which he was called a racial slur in Boston.
“I was pulling out of the arena parking lot when I saw a white woman with her five or six-year-old son crossing against the light right as the cars were starting to come at them. I had my windows down and realized something bad was about to happen, so I yelled to her, politely,” Smart said. “I figured she’d be cool. Nope.”
The woman in Celtics gear proceeded to curse him out and call him the n-word, Smart said.
