You never know what will happen to anyone sitting courtside during an NBA game.
In fighting for a loose ball, Lakers guard Marcus Smart crashed into longtime television host and political commentator Bill Maher while facing the Knicks in a Sunday afternoon tip-off at the Crypto.com Arena.
Both Smart and Maher appeared to escape the collision with minor injuries.
Maher showed off his seemingly injured finger to the ESPN broadcast, while Smart was seen favoring his left hand for multiple plays afterward.
At one point, Smart missed an open corner 3-point shot and favored his left hand after.
He did the same when checking out of the game moments later, but Smart did re-enter and eventually finished the contest, avoiding any serious injury.
Maher doesn’t appear to have suffered anything major either.
The Lakers subsequently won the contest, beating a surging Knicks squad 110-97 in one of their all-around best efforts of the season.
It’s only the fourth time this season the Lakers held an opponent under 100 points, and the Knicks are by far the best team L.A. has done this against, with the others being the Golden State Warriors, Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors.
Luka Doncic led the LeBron James-less Lakers with 35 points, eight rebounds and four assists, making five threes in the process.
Smart shot just 1-for-10 and went 0-for-5 from deep, ending the day with just five points, four assists and two steals.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
