BOSTON (AP) — Former Celtics and current Wizards guard Marcus Smart said a fan “crossed the line” when he was heckling Washington's bench during Sunday’s game in Boston, leading to a bit of shouting before the fan was ushered out of the TD Garden.
“He just crossed the line. We all know, I don’t do line crossing,” Smart said after the Celtics beat the Wizards 124-90. “You never want to see that, especially for a guy who’s coming back and has given the city everything he has.”
The game between the defending NBA champions and a team competing for the worst record in the league was never close, and Boston led by 35 with about six minutes left when a hubbub arose behind Washington's bench. Smart was pointing at a fan and it appeared his teammates and a coach were trying to hold him back.
Smart said he was pointing the man out to security. “Just trying to get him out before it escalated more than what it was,” he said.
Smart was drafted by the Celtics in 2014 and played the first nine years of his career with the team, but he was traded to Memphis in the summer of 2023 in a deal that brought Kristaps Porzingis to Boston.
The Celtics, who reached the Eastern Conference finals six times with Smart and the NBA Finals once, went on to win it all in the first year without him. Smart did not play in last year's game when the Grizzlies visited Boston; he did play for Memphis in Boston in December.
Back in the city for the first time since he was traded to Washington in February, Smart did not play on Sunday as the Wizards focus on young players and the draft lottery. During the game, fans chanted: “We want Marcus!”
“Flashbacks, baby,” Smart said. “The love is always there. From both sides – myself and the fans, the city. It’s definitely emotional coming back and you try to hold it back. But I love it. I love every last bit of it. I’m a part of the city -- nine years. A kid to a young man.”
Smart spent a long time after the game catching up with his former teammates.
“It’s always good to keep in touch with those guys,” he said. “Grew up with those guys. We went through a lot of battles -- blood, sweat and tears. A few of those guys came to my mom funeral. So it’s a deeper bond than just basketball between us.”
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Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown, right, jokes with former teammate, Washington Wizards' Marcus Smart, following an NBA basketball game Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown, right, talks with former teammate, Washington Wizards' Marcus Smart, following an NBA basketball game Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Donald Trump's nominee to oversee an agency that manages a quarter-billion acres of public land has withdrawn her nomination following revelations that she criticized the Republican president in 2021 for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The withdrawal of Kathleen Sgamma to lead the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management was announced Thursday morning at the start of her confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
David Bernhardt, who served as interior secretary in Trump’s first term, said on X that Sgamma’s withdrawal was “self-inflicted” and he included a link to a website that posted her 2021 comments. He suggested that people whose views don’t align with Trump’s should not seek political appointments in his administration.
“I am disgusted by the violence witnessed yesterday and President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it,” Sgamma said in the comments earlier reported by Documented, which describes itself as a watchdog journalism project.
Sgamma confirmed her withdrawal on LinkedIn and said it was an honor to have been nominated.
“I remain committed to President Trump and his unleashing American energy agenda and ensuring multiple-use access for all,” said Sgamma. Since 2006 she's been with the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, an oil industry trade group, and has been a vocal critic of the energy policies of Democratic administrations.
The longtime oil and gas industry representative appeared well-poised to carry out Trump's plans to roll back restrictions on energy development, including in Western states where the land bureau has vast holdings. The agency also oversees mining, grazing and recreation.
Sgamma's withdrawal underscored the Trump administration's creation of a “loyalty test” to weed out subordinates who are out of step with him, said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the left-leaning Center for Western Priorities.
“That’s the world we're in — if that’s what happened — where being sane and acknowledging reality with the White House is enough to sink a nomination,” he said.
Trump has been testing how far Republicans are willing to go in supporting his supercharged “Make America Great Again” agenda. Few Republicans have criticized Trump after his sweeping pardons of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Most congressional Republicans have played down the potential negative impact of Trump’s actions, including widespread tariffs on U.S. allies, and have stressed the importance of uniting behind him.
The Bureau of Land Management plays a central role in a long-running debate over the best use of government-owned lands, and its policies have swung sharply as control of the White House has shifted between Republicans and Democrats. Under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, it curbed oil drilling and coal mining on federal lands while expanding renewable power. The agency under Biden also moved to put conservation on more equal footing with oil drilling and other extractive industries in a bid to address climate change.
Trump is reversing the land bureau's course yet again.
On Thursday, officials announced that they will not comprehensively analyze environmental impacts from oil and gas leases on a combined 5,500 square miles (14,100 square kilometers) of bureau land in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. The leases were sold to companies between 2015 and 2020 but have been tied up by legal challenges.
Also this week, Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting coal production. That will end the Biden administration's ban on new federal coal sales on bureau lands in Wyoming and Montana, the nation's largest coal fields.
The land bureau had about 10,000 employees at the start of Trump’s second term, but at least 800 employees have been laid off or resigned amid efforts by the Trump administration to downsize the federal workforce.
It went four years without a confirmed director during Trump's first term. Trump also moved the agency’s headquarters to Colorado before it was returned to Washington, D.C., under Biden.
Sgamma's withdrawal was announced by Senate energy committee Chairman Mike Lee of Utah. The Republican said he would work with the administration to find a new nominee for the bureau.
"Its work directly impacts millions of Americans — especially in the West — and its leadership matters," Lee said.
Utah officials last year launched a legal effort to wrest control of Bureau of Land Management property from the federal government and put it under state control. They were turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Daly reported from Washington, D.C.
FILE - Kathleen Sgamma, President, Western Energy Alliance, speaks during a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing on America's Energy and Mineral potential, Feb. 8, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
