Orlando fans hecklers harass Rays family

[colincb]

There's friendly trash talking and there's harassment. If they really had to move, then the ORL fans responsible should have been tossed.

[35Lewis]

Trash talking fans is inappropriate.  I was at the first game of the Finals in 2008 and there was a kid that was wearing a Derek Fisher jersey and people were taunting him after the game. I got into more than one argument with overly intoxicated 'fans' that were taking the comments to a personal level.  I mean the kid was like 10 years old and if you are wearing a Fisher jersey instead of Kobe or Odom or Gasol then you must be a fan of the team.

She should have had security walk her by those people when the game was over so that she could say goodbye.  Then she could have done the 'jersey pop' on her way out.

[twinbree]

Glad to hear Ray's family was moved because the incident escalated into something very ugly. This should never happen. I hope they didn't get let off the hook. You'd think a real fan would be more focused on cheering their team out of the first double digit deficit they've faced all postseason rather than heckling fans of the other team.

[jackson_34]

I seem to remember hearing about some heckling in Boston at Jason Kidd and his family at some point in his career...

[Roy Hobbs]

I seem to remember hearing about some heckling in Boston at Jason Kidd and his family at some point in his career...

Heckling Jason Kidd:  fine

Heckling Jason Kidd's wife:  over the line and classless

[NoOne]

Just to give you all a different perspective of the incident, a good friend of mine was sitting very near Ray's mother at game 1 (yes, this is second-hand, but it's not 4th or 5th hand).

There were about 7 members of both Ray Allen and maybe Tony Allen's entourage/family sitting together in the sea of thousands of Magic fans.  All of them with green Celtics "Allen" jerseys with "Allen" bedazzled on the back.  Not that this should make a difference, but they were not trying to blend in.  Again, they should not have to try to be inconspicuous, but if it were me I'd expect a little light-hearted ribbing from the home team fans.

Since this was game 1 of the CHAMPIONSHIP series, the Magic arena gave out noise makers to help get everyone in the mood and cheer on the home team.  Apparently Ray's mom turned around to someone behind her very early in the 1st quarter and instructed the fan that she expected that the noise-makers would not be used around her.  (Sounds unreasonable to me.)  It seems like this was the beginning of the "situation".

A little later on in the game, Ray's brother (brother-in-law??) got into a verbal argument with a fan behind the group and some heavy name-calling was exchanged and a challenge of physical confrontation was made and accepted.  Ray's mom started trying to reel him in because she realized they were beginning to attract too much attention.  Shortly after this, a handful of police along with arena security arrived and eventually escorted Ray's family to a different area (my friend said they were taken to the reporters area). 

I agree that it is a good thing someone intervened before it got ugly, but from my friend's description, it sounds like it was more to protect them from their own behavior.

You can believe all or none of this and you may choose to take this as a second side of the situation.  Is the truth somewhere in-between, I don't know since I wasn't there in person.