Last night, the Philadelphia 76ers took a commanding 2-0 lead over the Washington Wizards in the first round of the 2021 NBA Playoffs. The Sixers destroyed the Wizards on their way to a 25-point win. Game three will be on Saturday and for the next few days, you won’t hear much about the Sixers, Ben Simmons, or Joel Embiid. The conversation has now been hijacked by popcorn.

You can thank a very stupid, most likely drunk, 76ers fan.

It was a frustrating night for Russell Westbrook that ended with him stepping on Furkan Korkmaz’s foot in the second half. Westbrook rolled his ankle and would leave the game. As he was heading to the locker room, decided to dump popcorn on Westbrook as he limped towards the tunnel.

This should go without saying, but I guess I have to make this abundantly clear for the morons on social media. Throwing anything at NBA players that are trying to perform their job is never okay. It’s so unacceptably stupid for a fan to do something like this, even more so to a player that is leaving the game with an injury. Russell Westbrook, whether you like him nor not, is one of the league’s most gifted players and like every other NBA player, deserves some respect. Make fun of him, talk shit, tweet pictures of his head photoshopped on baby bodies, whatever you want to do. Throwing things is just disgusting behavior that no one actually approves of.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never once wanted popcorn while at a sporting event. The mere fact that he purchased popcorn at the arena proves criminal intent. I don’t make the rules. Just do us all a favor and keep that jaggaloon away from The Farg until further notice.

In what started as a nice moment for Sixers fans, who gave Russell Westbrook a standing ovation as he left the game, turned into a narrative that will follow the Sixers’ fans throughout the rest of what we expect to be a historic playoff run. Everything is now overshadowed by popcorn.

Howard Eskin was calling for the arrest of the Sixers fan. Over popcorn. LeBron James started tweeting how the league needs to protect its players. Russell Westbrook, visibly upset, went on a tirade after the game about how disgusting the whole situation was and now, instead of being a “dumb Sixers fan”, its “Sixers fans” and “only in Philly” narratives that will certainly be hard to shake anytime in the near future.

Every fan base has bad fans. A Knicks fan spit on Trae Young last night at the Garden. A Dodgers fan literally beat another fans face in during a game last night against the Astros. At the end of the night, we’re simply talking about popcorn. I think I made it clear how dumb it was for this single fan to throw popcorn at Westbrook. But at the end of the night and I can’t say it enough, it’s popcorn.

In a light-hearted tweet, we here at the Liberty Line joked last night saying that Philly fans were class act for giving Westbrook the respect he deserves as he exited the court. Of course, that video was cut off before the popcorn incident. Do yourself a favor and click that tweet and read the replies. People were furious that I would tweet this out and attempted to put TLL and myself in a “gotcha” moment with the “where’s the popcorn?” replies like a pack of wolves looking for something to eat.

Honestly, Washington fans and media did plenty to embarrass themselves online last night, this is just one example.

Aww will you look at that, we ruined poor Deb’s night and can’t help thinking about how excited and angry she was tweeting that, thinking it was her time to shine and she was going to make us pay for not showing the popcorn incident. Turns out, her and roughly 50 other people commenting are all idiots. Point being, don’t generalize an entire fanbase based off one popcorn guy that no one wants to be associated with.

Russell Westbrook, don’t turn this into some bigger issue. It doesn’t warrant that type of attention. Howard Eskin, just shut up. National media, get over it and actually report on something with substance instead of the lazy “Philly fans at it again” narrative.

The Sixers are up 2-0. The Wizards can’t hang. Ben Simmons is dominating. Joel Embiid is “Thrusting The Process”. Tobias Harris’ playoff woes are gone. Matisse Thybulle had a million steals and a million blocks in under 20 minutes of action last night.

This popcorn guy and anyone riding their high horse about it stink. Get over it. See you Saturday for Game Three.

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Mandatory Credit: Russell Westbrook Popcorn Head