Fan walks into the game, creates sensation as Los Angeles Lakers face Denver Nuggets - NBA Update
On Sunday night a 20 year old basketball fan decided to take a stroll in the Pepsi Center. But the timings were most awkward as the court was occupied by Los Angeles Lakers and Denver
Nuggets. The woman identified as Savannah McMillan-Christmas a Denver native made into the news after pulling the stunt during the 2nd quarter of game.
She was not drunk and nor did she hold any malevolent intentions as she was holding just a sweat shirt, so it might be that the game didn’t attract her and she thought to make it interesting.
She was disoriented," said Kurt Schwartzkopf, the Nuggets' chief marketing officer. "She did not appear to be intoxicated.
Whatever the reason was she succeeded in creating excitement and was escorted out of the premises by the law enforcing officer.
Satire apart, these kinds of situations did get ugly in the past and talisman Kobe Bryant recalled on similar incident back in 1993. When tennis star Monica Seles was stabbed in the
back by fan during a match in Germany.
Referring to that incident Kobe said.
"You'd hate to see a situation in basketball that took place like Monica Seles
The incident that occurred in the dying moments of 2nd frame, just when Ty Lawson started to take charge towards the up-court she started walking towards the court. After
wards she was charged for trespassing and was released to the custody of her mother, she will be trialled in the court on June 5.
She was clearly not right in the head, as she was asking about Kenyon Martin, former Denver player. However police didn’t find any complaints from Kenyon about being stalked by the lady.
One cannot undermine the fact that there is no perimeter or barrier between the court and fans they are in way practically sitting on the court. Players often jump on the crowd while
playing at the corners of court. NBA vice president of basketball Stu Jackson was on the courtside and witnessed the incident, he admitted that lack of perimeter makes such incidents more likely.
"When you have basketball and you're in such close proximity to the game, it's somewhat unavoidable. If somebody wanders out there or wants to walk out there, it's a difficult incident
to prohibit."
Hi ups from the hierarchy visit the playoff games regularly and this time he was destined to see the incident, however he was satisfied by the way situation was dealt with.
I thought they handled it fairly well in terms of just getting to her as quickly as they could.”
The game went undisturbed afterwards and Lakers finished off Nuggets, 92-88. But for a very brief moment Savannah created some sensation and did get noticed.
thought they handled it fairly well in terms of just getting to her as quickly as they could," Jackson said. "And that's what they're instructed to do, to try to remove a fan that's in danger to herself
or himself or the players."
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