The NBA: Brawlin', Round 2
Ding-ding! NBA fans, lehhhhhhhhht's get ready to ruuuuuummmmm-bbbbllllllllllllle -- again.
Saturday night in Madison Square Garden, the most famous boxing arena in the world, the NY Knicks and Denver Nuggets set upon each other in the squared rectangle for what snarky bloggers and snide sportswriters have billed as the Throwdown in Showtown.
Down 19 points with less than two minutes to play, a familiar position for Knicks teams the last few years, Knickerbocker Mardy Collins took it upon himself to exact some frontier justice on Nugget J.R. Smith as Smith drove the lane en route to increasing the Nuggets' already insurmountable lead. Predictably incensed, the Nugs retaliated in kind with the requisite pushing and arm flailing. It was shaping up as just another NBA slap-and-tickle fight until Knick fireplug Nate Robinson and foulee Smith went flying into pricey floor seats along the baseline behind the Nuggets basket.Oh it was on then.
Bodies rushed together on the court in a frenzy of expletives and "your mother!"s, and then league scoring leader Carmelo Anthony lost his mind and sucker-punched fouler Collins in the face.
Adding an extra level of intrigue to this story is word that just before the hard foul on Carmelo, Knicks coach Isiah Thomas "warned" Anthony not to venture into the lane. Sounds about right. It seems that Thomas and Nuggets coach George Karl have bad blood between them, Karl being a Larry Brown guy and Isaiah being decidedly not. Nicknamed "the baby-faced assassin", Thomas was always a sneaky dirty player back in his days with the intimidation-minded Detroit Pistons "Bad Boys" teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s. He'd smile, hug, and kiss-kiss you before the game, then cheap shot you with an elbow or a hard foul during the game -- ain't that right Magic, Michael, and Larry?
Oh you bet your sweet ass there's some finage resulting from this fracas. If there is one thing NBA commish David Stern will not tolerate, it's somebody soiling the image of his beloved cash cow, er moneymaker, er basketball product.
The Knicks and Pacers share the spirit of the holiday season, NYC style. Photo from The Columbian News.
Because he threw the most high-visibility and low-class punch, 'Melo got slapped with a three-gold-chain fine of 15 games. (The over/under was eight games.) The guy who started it all, Collins, got just a six-game vacation. Nate Robinson and J.R. Smith, the guys who decided to get the fans involved, got 10 game suspensions, and various ancillary combatants received less of the same. Each team was fined $500,000, but somehow, sweet-smiling Isiah got off without so much as a hand check.
There is recent precedent for such NBA action, both pugilistic and punitive.
Two years ago, a major brawl marred the end of an early season game between the (eventual NBA champs) Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers. With less than a minute to play, Piston Ben Wallace was arm-tackled as he went up for a layup by then-Pacer Ron Artest. Justifiably, Wallace was pissed and started looking around for some payback. Cooler heads were about to prevail until some jackass threw a cup from the stands. The ill-advised toss ended up hitting Ron Artest -- who for some reason was laying down on the scorer's table at the time -- and all hell broke loose. Incensed at the attack on his respecthood, the Tru Warior leapt blindly into the stands and started wailing on the first spectator he could get his hands on. As befitting a good teammate and partner, fellow rockhead Stephen Jackson joined Artest in the stands.
Instantly, there were multiple players duking it out with fans in the stands and fans coming down on the court to take their shots at the players. Chairs and beverages were thrown. One of the most enduring images of the brawl was a ridiculously drunk fat guy giving Pacer forward Jermaine O'Neal the "put up your dukes" stance, to which O'Neal responded by leveling the guy with a straight right hand that actually connected (scroll down to #6).
It was bedlam. Sadly, it was also the most exciting NBA action we've seen since MJ called it quits for the second time. The sporting world was up in arms. Role models, professionalism, MONEY -- all at risk by such behavior. David Stern knew he had to send a message that brawling with fans was not acceptable so he suspended Artest for the remainder of the season (about 70 games), Jackson for 30 games and O'Neal for 25 games. Others received lesser penalties.
But Saturday night the NBA boys were at it again. And you know what? We couldn't care less. The fans want blood, and the NBA should stop kidding itself about the players-as-model-citizens routine. They aren't. Well, some are, but for the most part, these are spoiled, arrogant celebrities who have been given way too much money and privilege for way too little sacrifice. The list of abuses, violations, and arrests is longer than George Bush's nose, and that's not likely to change any time soon.
So let them beat the hell out of each other. Throw up a Plexiglas ring around the court to protect the fans and let the basketbrawlers go at each other like hockey players -- it's what the fans really want to see anyway. Let them knock each other silly for awhile, suffer some career-ending injuries, and get turned off of that sweet money teat they're gorging themselves on right now, and they'll self-correct. But in the meantime, basketball is a game of emotion, any rec league hucker will tell you that. If players aren't whipping themselves into animalistic frenzy and getting frustrated at cheap shots and blowouts, then the games might as well just be exhibitions, or golf.