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Celtics' Smart: Fan in Denver told me to 'stay on the ground, get on your knees'

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Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart revealed to reporters following his team's 96-92 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday that a fan at Pepsi Center directed abusive language toward him during an incident in the fourth quarter.

"My foot got stuck in the chair and the fan told me: 'That's right, stay on the ground, get on your knees,'" Smart said, per NBC Sports Boston. "Excuse me? ... I just told him: 'Listen, just watch the game. Because if we retaliate to you guys, and we was on the street, guarantee you wouldn't say that because we're grown men just like you.' I told security, they didn't do anything about it. Just gotta move on.

"But that's a problem in the league that we gotta fix because if we retaliate to protect ourselves, we're the ones getting in trouble. They're not, and that's not right. We got kids. Some of us got our kids, their wives, girlfriends, parents watching this game and for you to talk like that there's nowhere in this league for it.

"We're out there playing and you guys are coming to watch us. We respect you guys and all we ask is to respect (us)."

While the broadcast didn't capture Smart's conversation with the fan, security could be seen speaking with someone in the area before retreating.

Smart says he isn't satisfied with the arena staff's response to the incident.

"Not at all, not at all," he said. "I told them who it was. They just looked at him and didn't even say anything to him. Didn't even get him out of the game. Probably if I was a superstar they probably would have did something for it, but it is what it is.

"Like I said, we're going to end up protecting ourselves eventually and it's not going to be pretty for those fans. We don't want that, the league doesn't want that, we don't want that as players, but at some point, you gotta stand up and you gotta protect yourself as a man."

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