On Monday night, the Los Angeles Clippers suffered a tough 130-120 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Even worse, on Tuesday afternoon the league announced that Clippers center Montrezl Harrell would be fined for comments he made towards a fan during the game.

Via Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints:

The incident occurred before a foul shot by Timberwolves point guard Jeff Teague. A courtside fan appeared to be heckling Harrell while he lined up. Harrell responded by telling the fan to “be a fan and shut the f*** up.”

Via Def Pen Hoops (with vulgar language):

After the fine became official, Harrell took to Twitter to respond:

The Clippers center played 35 minutes in the loss, tallying 18 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists. For the season, the 25-year-old is averaging 15.8 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists, all career-highs.

This production has come mostly from the bench, as Harrell has started only four games this season, serving as the back-up starting center Ivica Zubac.

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Monday night's loss was a tough one for the Clippers. The team holds the ninth seed in the Western Conference, only percentage points behind the Sacramento Kings for a playoff spot.

Their loss to the 26-30, 12th-seed Timberwolves lowered their playoff odds to 75.6%, via ESPN's BPI system. Los Angeles has gone 5-5 in their last 10 games. They are lucky that the tenth-seed Lakers have gone only 3-7 in that span.

The battle for that last playoff spot should be a tough one, with the Clippers, Kings and Lakers all within two games of each other.

The Dallas Mavericks, at 26-26 and four games back of the eighth seed, could make the race interesting as well.