PHOENIX — Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, the king of playoff adjustments, surely has some shrewd moves planned for Game 2 on Tuesday in their first-round playoff series against the Phoenix Suns.

One of them is a halftime tweak, and a pretty obvious one, so he was OK divulging it Monday.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lue said when I asked if he’d counsel his players to avoid the shortcut that snagged Russell Westbrook in an altercation with a fan at halftime of Sunday’s 115-110 victory at Footprint Center.

The coach from Missouri gives a polite interview, but the fans who frequent sporting arenas can be rude and ruthless and players can be provoked. So we get scenes like Westbrook’s profane response to a Suns fan who drew his ire in the lounge area that serves – served, past tense, hopefully, in the Clippers’ case – as a shortcut to the visiting locker room.

Maybe the scene is the latest symptom of the ever-combative dialogue on social media eroding our sense of public decency? Maybe it’s something to do with the divided nature of the nation, overall? Maybe we lost a sense of civil decorum while we were social distancing during the pandemic?

Maybe it’s alcohol?

I was right there… Dude called Russ westbrick. And yeah….

0 got the last laugh on the court too

— Eddie Gonzalez (@bansky) April 17, 2023

Maybe, considering those variables, A) players should work on improving their jumpers and thickening their skin? Stop giving jerks the satisfaction? (Eddie Gonzalez, the producer and co-host on Kevin Durant’s podcast, tweeted that he was within earshot: “Dude called Russ westbrick.”)

B) Fans should have more respect? And C) some sense – both of time and place, and of the common variety?

D) All of the above?

Because who could have called Sunday’s confrontation? Westbrook, who is more exploding balsam than shrinking violet, vs. a trash-talking member of an opposing fan base, all of whom seem to find joy in needling the famously touchy future Hall of Famer?

Everyone. Every single one of the 17,071 fans in the arena on Sunday night would have expected it.

It was as predictable as Westbrook going warp speed whenever there’s a basketball in his hands.

And Westbrook walked right into it. In the midst of his remarkable statistically anomalous 3-for-19 shooting triumph, he found a way to sprinkle extra spice.

He waded right into a fracas – and in Phoenix, where the “Suns In Four Guy” is a celebrated folk hero for fighting two Nuggets fans by himself in the stands in Denver.

The site of the ugly brawl in 2021 between a couple of Clippers fans, outnumbered in a hallway filled with Suns fans, during the teams’ Western Conference finals meeting.

The desert city with a popular breakfast spot whose name, menu and entire service strategy plays off the swear word that recently triggered a violent reaction from Anthony Rendon against a fan in Oakland. Servers at this spot approach your table and ask something that sounds like: “And how are you witches doing?”

(Food’s pretty good there – as, apparently, was whatever was in front of the child who kept chowing down while the grownups stood above him, arguing at halftime Sunday.)

Context is everything, of course, and Lue said he trusts that Westbrook wouldn’t escalate a verbal confrontation further. Lue said that while Westbrook is one to always “address the situation, he’s not going to put his hands on anybody or anything like that.”

Still, yes, Lue acknowledged: “Just gotta be smart about it. People will say what they want to say and just you know, gotta be smart about it.” (Read: Take the long way to the locker room.)

And Lue knows how it feels to be heckled and trolled. He said he’s gotten it for years from fans in Philadelphia, who still haven’t stopped giving him a hard time for his part in Allen Iverson’s iconic step-over in the 2001 NBA Finals, which Lue’s Lakers won in five games.

20 years ago today, Iverson dropped 48 points and gave the Lakers their only loss of the playoffs.

The iconic step over game. pic.twitter.com/HnvdP7RO04

— Timeless Sports (@timelesssports_) June 6, 2021

“I hated going there, they talk so much stuff,” said Lue, who knew his best rebuttal would come on the court: “Play better. Play good and they’ve got to shut up.”

To hear him tell it, though, they still haven’t shushed, and he’s been retired from playing since 2009.

“Yeah, 20 years later, they still hate me,” said Lue, who would nonetheless find great joy in being on the receiving end of all that needling in several weeks, if, somehow, the fifth-seeded Clippers and third-seeded 76ers both manage to reach the NBA Finals.

“Yeah, I would,” he said, smiling at the thought of shutting up so many people. “I would love to.”

. @MirjamSwanson: “Are you gonna counsel those guys to not to take that shortcut [where Russell Westbrook got into an altercation]?”

Tyronn Lue: “Yes ma’am.”pic.twitter.com/3Uj6KLRnbV

— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) April 17, 2023