Jeff Roberson / AP

New York Knicks' Antonio Davis, left, heads back to the court after going into the crowd during overtime of a Wednesday night's game against the Bulls in Chicago. Davis was ejected from the game after the incident.

Without that tribal identification, sports wouldn’t be as successful and lucrative as they are. If we didn’t have the need to identify, no one with a shred of common sense would spend $150 on a pair of sneakers or shell out more than $100 for a shirt just like the one his hero wears.

The object, then, isn’t to stop fans from being fans. It should be to demand something approaching civil behavior.

I don’t know what happened that prompted Davis to run into the stands in Chicago. All I know is what we all saw on TV: He climbs over the scorer’s table, mounts the stairs and stops to talk to someone. He wasn’t violent, nor did he threaten violence.

Afterwards, Davis, who has been one of the NBA’s good citizens, said he later learned the fan was intoxicated. He said he saw the fan touch his wife.

The fan, 22-year-old Michael Axelrod, whose father is a prominent political consultant, denies being drunk or touching Kendra Davis and has hired a lawyer to make Davis pay seven figures to compensate the young fan for the damage to his reputation. He claims he was not intoxicated and also says Kendra Davis assaulted him, not the other way around.

All he was doing was being a good fan, he says: “When I go to games, I cheer as hard as I can for the Bulls, and I boo as hard as I can for whoever they’re playing.”

There were other witnesses who have been or will be interviewed, so we haven’t heard the last of this.

Whatever happened, Kendra Davis felt offended, which I’m sure wasn’t a new emotion for her. To be the wife of a player and to sit in the crowd with the opposition is to listen to your husband and his team be abused in ways both vulgar and imaginative. It has to get you a person.

The Knicks lost the game in overtime, so that had to add to Kendra Davis’ frustration. Something pushed her enough to confront Axelrod, who was sitting a couple of rows behind her. Whether it was even Axelrod who irked her or someone else we also don’t know.

It could turn out that Kendra Davis was having a bad day and said something when she should have said nothing. Players’ wives, like the players themselves, have to have thicker skin than the rest of us. And it could be that Axelrod snapped back, doing what fans do.

In other words, it could have been just another unpleasant moment like so many others that no one would have noticed. But Davis happened to glance into the stands at his wife just at the time when he saw something that told him his wife was threatened. He did what anyone would do.

Axelrod did what too many people would also do. He sued over an incident that really didn’t amount to much, an incident in which no one was hurt and Antonio Davis lost five games and the pay that goes with them for his breach of one of the most fundamental rules of the game.

I’ll leave it to the lawyers to sort it out and assign blame. And I’ll wait for the NBA and every sports league to demand that their fans understand that there’s a good way to cheer and a bad way, and that the bad way won’t be tolerated.

More news

Drew Hallowell / Getty Images

76ers see an opportunity

CSN: This second-round series with the Celtics is guaranteed to last at least 11 days, which is just fine with the 76ers, but isn't what Boston had in mind. Going back to Boston with the series tied 2-2 is an opportunity the 76ers are embracing.

CSN: Celts know importance of Game 5

Headlines

• Label

That old familiar feeling

Trash Talk: History might overlook the Spurs

PBT: Spurs give Clippers playoff lesson

Spurs finish off Clippers in sweep

PBT: Heat's two-man show too much

PBT: Warriors reportedly moving to San Francisco

Slideshow: Celebs shine at NBA playoffs

Slideshow: Best images of NBA playoffs