CLUB CHOKE
NBA hothead accused in W. Side attack on gal
BASKETBALL PRO Matt Barnes, accused of choking a woman in a Chelsea nightclub early Monday, claimed he was just defending himself from a rowdy crew who attacked him first.
Police sources identified the victim as the Sacramento Kings forward’s girlfriend.
Barnes, in New York for a weekend series against the Knicks, has not been arrested, the sources said.
“There’s always two sides to a story,” Barnes, 36, posted on Instagram Monday afternoon. “The side the media consistently tries to paint of me . . . And what actually happened! Don’t believe everything you read.”
The NYPD received a call after midnight about a man assaulting two women and a man inside Avenue Nightclub on 10th Ave. near 18th St.
An argument between Barnes and his 26-year-old girlfriend, who was sitting at a table, escalated, and the NBA player allegedly put his hands around her neck, sources said.
Barnes threw punches at a man and woman who tried to intervene and then fled the scene, the sources said.
But a rep for Barnes told TMZ that he was having fun with teammate DeMarcus Cousins when he accidentally bumped into a woman he did not know.
The woman slapped him in the face and then her male friends knocked Barnes to the ground, and one of the men put his hands around Barnes’ throat, the rep said.
Barnes defended himself, the rep said, and Cousins stepped in to stop the fight as well.
“Matt is cooperating with the NYPD’s investigation,” Barnes’ lawyer Alex Spiro told the Daily News Monday.
A video obtained by TMZ taken outside the club appears to show Barnes with Cousins talking about the fight.
Barnes posted a photo of himself in stylish clothes on Instagram hours before the fracas.
“Here goes your photo bro . . . You know I hate taken these (expletive) selfies. Ha!” he wrote on Instagram. “But this jacket & shoes on point.”
After the fight was reported, more than 300 people commented on the pic, some blaming Barnes for the incident.
The Kings released a statement, saying the team is “working with all parties involved to gather information in order to take any appropriate next steps.”
The Avenue Nightclub, a twostory lounge that touts itself as “the go-to meeting place for boldfaced names and scenesters” like Marc Jacobs, Kim Kardashian and Derek Jeter, did not immediately respond to an email and phone call requesting comment.
This isn’t the first time Barnes is reported to have been in an altercation.
In 2015, Barnes got into a fight with former Knicks coach Derek Fisher because Fisher was dating Barnes’ estranged wife, Gloria Govan. Barnes learned of the relationship when one of his kids told him.
Barnes later said Fisher was “lucky” Barnes was restrained during a brawl in Los Angeles last year with the ex-Knicks coach because “it would have been a lot worse.”
Before the reported altercation, Knicks fans heckled Barnes Sunday night, chanting “Derek Fisher” when the Kings lost to the Knicks, 106-98.