LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Stephen Curry’s father-in-law was nearly arrested ahead of Golden State’s ill-tempered defeat to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday in Game Six of the NBA Finals, in what the player’s wife decried as a case of racial profiling.
Curry’s wife Ayesha said her father was detained in Cleveland in the mistaken belief he was a well-known con artist who was thought to be attempting to attend the game using bogus accreditation.
“Police racial profiled my father and told him to remove credentials and tried to arrest him. It’s been a long night for me. I apologize,” she wrote on Twitter.
“I’m okay that we lost… I just can’t take people coming at my family for absolutely no reason. Something I don’t understand or stand for.”
Ayesha Curry had earlier suggested Cleveland staff deliberately delayed the entry of friends and family of Warriors players entering the stadium.
“10 mins til game time and the whole teams families are sitting here on a bus. They won’t let us in yet. Interesting tactic though. Again,” she posted.
The incidents deepened the sense of rancor surrounding Thursday’s game, which the Cavaliers won 115-101 to level the series at 3-3, setting up a decisive final Game Seven on Sunday in Oakland.
Curry, the reigning NBA MVP, fouled out for the first time since 2013 in the fourth quarter, angering Warriors coach Steve Kerr who later lambasted the officiating.
Ayesha Curry later tweeted that her husband’s ejection was part of a conspiracy to “rig” the outcome of the game “for money or ratings.”
She later deleted the post, saying it had been made in the “heat of the moment.”
Curry meanwhile described the incident involving his father-in-law as “traumatic.”
“I was just kind of debriefed on what the security thought happened with some guy that poses with fake credentials and gets backstage at a lot of events, the NBA Finals and all that stuff,” Curry told ESPN’s The Undefeated.
“They kind of profiled my father-in-law and thought he was him. They threatened to arrest him before they checked out his credentials. It’s kind of been an emotional and tough night all the way around.
“That was kind of a traumatic situation where her (Ayesha’s) dad almost got arrested. So it was kind of a tough situation to deal with in a hostile environment. All in all, it’s just a game. I hope that everybody is all right.”
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