Official Brawl Thread (no need to start more)

[Shelly]

Does this mean Malik will get more playing time????

[Supergirl]

I think it is appalling the Isiah Thomas is even attempting to justify his players' actions, and I think it speaks volumes about who he is as a coach and a person - someone with no value system to impart on his players. And that shows by his team's shoddy record.

Nuggets don't have to justify playing anybody they want on the floor. It's their fucking team, they can play whoever they want. It's questionable coaching to play your starters when the game is won - but that's the coach's call. There is no excuse for reaction violently. You go out there any play your best, regardless of who is playing.
And like I said, that attitude starts at the top down - with the coach and the ownership.

Meanwhile, Carmelo Anthony has now separated himself from any of the league's elite in a negative way by acting like such a knucklehead. I always knew he lacked something that some of the great ones lack - now I know what it is: brains. You don't put yourself in a position to potentially be suspended 20-25 games when you're the team leader. The Nuggets have likely taken themselves out of playoff contention.

[romsey31]

I really doubt that as Denver players didn't go into the stands with the sole intent of fighting fans. They were in the first few rows fighting eachother.
The difference is New york fans arent retarded like Detroit fans, no fan tried to get involved.

[Kamnik]

I think it is appalling the Isiah Thomas is even attempting to justify his players' actions, and I think it speaks volumes about who he is as a coach and a person - someone with no value system to impart on his players. And that shows by his team's shoddy record.



i couldnt agree more

i watched his post game comments-it looked like me he had some nervous bad feeling about it (imo it could be very possible that he ordered a "hard" foul)

Isiah Thomas is a coach without class whatsoever

[boutons_]

Watch Stern come down on all the instigators and contributors like 1000 lead-filled obsolete synthetic basketballs.

Anybody hear when Stern will hold his press conference?

[ata]

Excelent reading: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AmhDZ6zmmh_fnSWNo0TjS7y8vLYF?slug=dw-knicks121606&prov=yhoo&type=lgns


...
Just when you thought Zeke couldn't embarrass this franchise any worse, just when you thought he couldn't let down this city any more, just when you thought building and coaching a dog team wasn't enough, there is this: a whiny coach making excuses for dirty fouls and poser players.
...

[romsey31]

"By leaving 4 starters in with a 20-point lead and a little over a minute in the game"

Very similar to Larry having the Piston starters playing in the last couple minutes while they were blowing out the Pacers.

You got it wrong...Pacers were blowing out the pistons...and all starters for both teams were still in the game.

[Kamnik]

Excelent reading: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AmhDZ6zmmh_fnSWNo0TjS7y8vLYF?slug=dw-knicks121606&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

i actually feel bad for the Knicks fans.... for the last few years actually


QUOTE "It's all gone in New York now – the pride, the respect, the dignity. This isn't just a bad team; this is a bad act. A once proud franchise and fan base brought to its knees as its pathetic coach makes excuses and whines for mercy. "

[mountainballer]

agree to all who argue that it is the Nuggets call if they play their starters at the end or not.
unwritten law, gentlemens agreement or whatever....what a nonsense.
maybe a coach thinks it would be good for the confidence to blow out the other team at their homecourt, as mentioned, he might be wrong, but it is his call.

what kind of a moron Thomas and some of his players are (Robinson) when defending the foul of Collins and whole actions by blaming the nuggets for playing starters at the end of a won game.
Collins fouled Smith obviously with the intention to hit him the worst possible way, also accepting a potential serious injury to Smith.
I think Smith is also a big headcase, but that he jumped at Collins is more than understandable. some people argue, that Spurs players wouldn't react like any of the involved players.
hm....they for sure would not do what Carmelo or Anthony did, but do you see all of them just shrug in the second after the foul?
then Robinson went after Smith as if Smith had just fouled Collins and not the other way.
again, I don't try to defend Smith, but in the action I can see why he didn't want Robinson to attack him several times.
Robinson is really completly nuts. what a punk.

the punch of Carmelo was another story. absolutly stupid. (even if it looks as if Collins has said something to Carmelo before the punch)
(btw. who tackled Jeffries when he tried to go for Carmelo. was it Camby? can't say if it was accidently or a super fast reaction)

[SequSpur]

The reason why the Suns, the Nuggets, the Mavs and the Kings play their starters in a blow out is because they only win their championships in the individual stat column.

A little fight here and there is good for the NBA. It was getting kind of boring.

[greenroom]

The reason why the Suns, the Nuggets, the Mavs and the Kings play their starters in a blow out is because they only win their championships in the individual stat column.

A little fight here and there is good for the NBA. It was getting kind of boring.

I am willing to bet that if this happened to Tim Duncan you would have the same reaction as you had in Denver/New York from the Spurs.

I am willing to bet also that if someone did that to your friend sor family that you would also not just stand pat and say that is ok.

[romsey31]

The reason why the Suns, the Nuggets, the Mavs and the Kings play their starters in a blow out is because they only win their championships in the individual stat column.

A little fight here and there is good for the NBA. It was getting kind of boring.
No doubt

[wildbill2u]

Thomas, by contrast, might be facing more than accusations. You can be sure the league will investigate suggestions that Collins' hard foul on Smith came via mandate from the Knicks' bench.

That sort of directive would be difficult to prove, but ESPN.com's Chris Sheridan reported Saturday night that Thomas, according to a member of the Nuggets' organization, warned Anthony not to venture near the paint not long before Collins' foul.

Isn't this the second time that Thomas has been accused of fomenting violence from the bench this year?

[BUMP]

i find it funny that the Knicks said that they had to "defend their house"

its your job to stop the other team. they're acting like dunking on a fastbreak is a crime. maybe you shouldnt turn the ball over. you defend your house by winning not clothslining someone. nothing they can say is a legitimate excuse. the knicks backed themselves into a corner with no way out

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

Man, Carmelo doesn't even get back that fast on defense.

[wildbill2u]

I dunno ; bit it ended Rudy T's career as a player ; that was a violent punch
Maybe it's a good thing Melo didn't his Collins hard
I think he got suspended for the rest of the season.

Frankly, I think Washington got a raw deal on that. Many of you have probably never seen the video, but as I remember it, during the fight Washington was sort of backed up alone on the court away from the fight, but on the alert for anyone approaching. Rudy started running over at him from about 15-20 feet away. Washington caught the movement toward him out of the corner of his eye, pivoted around and threw the punch. Rudy ran right into it at full speed which also helped make it more serious.

Now presumably Rudy was just going to be a peacemaker, but how did Washington know that? What he saw was another superbly fit, trained athlete, 6-6 and over 200 lbs, charging toward him in the middle of a brawl. He had a split second to react.

His split second reaction was to throw a punch and protect himself and his space. I can't fault him for that. I probably would have done the same. It was not done with malice or in any way an aggressive move TOWARD Rudy. Rudy put himself in harm's way. If he had stayed on the bench it would never have happened, but everyone sympathized with him because of the severity of the injury.

I know that Washington later apologized to Rudy and his feelings of remorse probably drove him for the rest of his career. Frankly, Washington was never the same player in my opinion, just like Rudy.

[LEONARD]

Basketball fights are so lame...I'd love to see some of these guys that act like badasses thrown into a ring to show what they can do...

[angel_luv]

I missed most of the footage. Malik wasn't at all involved, right?


Except for Malik and Marbury and Curry ( if he is still there), I don't know anything about the Knicks team.

But I have thought Denver was a bunch of thugs since the 2005 play offs. It's no shock to me that they were involved in a brawl.
:loser

[wildbill2u]

I am willing to bet that if this happened to Tim Duncan you would have the same reaction as you had in Denver/New York from the Spurs.

I am willing to bet also that if someone did that to your friend sor family that you would also not just stand pat and say that is ok.
No, you'd probably have some of our drunk fans out on the court 'punching for Timmy' while some of the Spurs sat on the bench laughing and rating the punches thrown. :ihit

Texans don't have many fans worried about their Armanis. :spin

[exstatic]

Man, Carmelo doesn't even get back that fast on defense.
:lmao At least Karl now has a teaching tool for him.

"Hey, Melo, just pretend that you sissy punched someone, and are trying to GTFO of there..."

[GrandeDavid]

i just saw it. Melo slapped him, it wasnt a punch

only 5 games i reckon , maybe 10

Punch or slap, he fueled a fire that was seemingly calming down. That deserves harsh consequences.

[IX_Equilibrium]

Carmelo is a little bitch for sucker punching and then running away.

[Walton Buys Off Me]

I love how Carmelo throws a punch, then runs away.....typical bitch basketball player.

The Nuggets and Knicks defined bush-league prior to this 'attempt at a brawl', now they just look like WNBA teams.

These guys- especially the punk-ass ho Anthony should be suspended for not knowing how to fight.

[Obstructed_View]

I am willing to bet that if this happened to Tim Duncan you would have the same reaction as you had in Denver/New York from the Spurs.

I am willing to bet also that if someone did that to your friend sor family that you would also not just stand pat and say that is ok.
You have no idea what you are talking about.

The Spurs had their second leading scorer taken out for the season on a cheap flagrant that basically cost them a shot at a championship. That same offender committed a flagrant on Malik Rose in the same series, and there was still no fight. In 2005 Manu got elbowed to the ground in the playoffs by three guys that were humiliated that Manu was fucking owning their little bitch asses. He got up and made his free throws on the way to knocking them out of the playoffs.

And again, for the logic impaired: Isiah did not empty his bench in the game. What he did was put Collins in the game for Marbury just before the flagrant.

And yes, Carmelo's sucker punch while simultaneously backpedalling is the pussy move of the season. I hope he gets a dozen games for that.

[jn77]

Malice at the Palace..........What will this be called?


Makes me wonder what they would call a fight at the AT&T Center? Not that Pop would let that shit happen!

[jn77]

[QUOTE=Walton Buys Off Me]I love how Carmelo throws a punch, then runs away.....typical bitch basketball player.

Bitch move by "marsh" Melo!

[Chris Childs]

[QUOTE=Walton Buys Off Me]I love how Carmelo throws a punch, then runs away.....typical bitch basketball player.

Bitch move by "marsh" Melo!

Yeah Carmelo is a bitch. When I did my bidness with Kobe at least I didn't run like a sissy. Carmelo, I lost all respect for you. :ihit

[TDMVPDPOY]

carmelo shouldve just thrown one at nate while he was jumpin up and down holdin his crotch like he was michael jackson, sit down boy. And run back into the changing rooms....

[TDMVPDPOY]

Makes me wonder what they would call a fight at the AT&T Center? Not that Pop would let that shit happen!

after a brawl pop and his men will give out some serious interrogation, so how do you like ur ass gel?

[MosesGuthrie]

AJ said that when Nash took him down, not Van Exel.

Yes I know. Nowhere was I attributing that remark to that incident....I was speaking of AJ in general.

[TheSanityAnnex]

I'm still :lmao at how fast Carmen Anthony ran away!

"What did the five fingers say to the face" "Sllllllllaaaaaap"

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

Updated: Dec. 17, 2006, 8:45 AM ET
Answering the hard questions after Garden brawl

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Archive

You've undoubtedly got questions about Saturday night's fight at Madison Square Garden.

We've got the first batch of answers for what happens next to the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets after a brawl that resulted in five ejections for each team and, at least for the moment, diverts some attention away from the Nuggets' front-runner status in the Allen Iverson Sweepstakes.

How long will the league's leading scorer be suspended?

A punch -- whether or not it connects -- gets you an automatic one-game suspension.

The severity of Carmelo Anthony's penalty from there, and for all the main players in this fracas, is a case-by-case call by NBA commissioner David Stern and VP Stu Jackson. Whether punches land, where they land and who's responsible for escalation all factor in, as does leaving the bench to join in.

The footage you've seen puts at least five players in unquestioned trouble.

1. New York's Mardy Collins took J.R. Smith down with the initial hard, two-handed foul that can't be pardoned no matter how frustrated the Knicks were with what they perceived as Denver intentionally running up the score.

2. New York's Nate Robinson was the first to escalate the situation by wildly confronting Smith and other Nuggets.

3. Smith went after Robinson and the ensuing tangle spilled into a fan section, not far from where Knicks chairman James Dolan sits.

4. Anthony became the other chief escalator by throwing a right hook at Collins ... a punch that came just when things appeared to be settling down.

5. New York's Jared Jeffries went so hard chasing after 'Melo in response to the punch that Jeffries fell down and still had to be restrained when he got up.

The best early estimates: A minimum of five games for Anthony and Robinson ... and possibly longer. Suspensions for Collins, Smith and Jeffries would appear to be in the range of 1-to-3 games.

Don't forget, though, that Stern has been exerting his authority more than ever since the infamous Detroit-Indiana brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Nov. 19, 2004. Keeping that in mind, it wouldn't be a shocker to see all of those estimates fall short.

The Nuggets and Anthony, of course, stand to lose the most from a lengthy suspension. Denver, at 13-9, is clinging to seventh in the Western Conference with roughly one-fourth of the season gone. Given Anthony's importance to the Nuggets -- he's averaging a league-best 31.6 points -- they'd likely feel fortunate to win any game he misses.

For 'Melo himself, this episode is bound to take a chunk out of his newfound darling status ... just days after he donated $1.5 million to fund a youth development center in his hometown of Baltimore. After a variety of setbacks in his first three pro seasons, Anthony was widely regarded as the standout performer on a Team USA squad that finished a disappointing third in last summer's World Championships in Japan and has been hailed in recent weeks for the increasing maturity in his game in terms of shot selection and leadership.

How much harsher will the penalties be because the fight crossed into fan territory?

It's a factor for sure.

Comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the Palace brawl, but that's not a correct comparison. This wasn't even close to that.

Fans at Madison Square Garden, for starters, were innocent bystanders Saturday night. At no point did we see intentional interaction between players and fans.

However ...

Fans sitting along the baseline were endangered by the Robinson-Smith scrap, something the league office won't ignore.

For proof, we refer you to the better comparison, which was less than a year ago.

In Seattle, on Jan. 11, 2006, Orlando's Keyon Dooling and Seattle's Ray Allen wound up in the first row of seats along the sideline after fighting.

Dooling was suspended for five games for throwing a punch at Allen (which did not connect) and for what the league described as "attempting to confront [Allen] in the hallway following his ejection." Allen was suspended for three games.

How soon will the NBA announce the suspensions and fines?

Neither team plays Sunday and both have games Monday night. That gives Stern's staff a day-plus to conduct an investigation before the Knicks or Nuggets play again.

The inquiry will begin with NBA security personnel interviewing numerous players from both teams and include an extensive review of raw footage of the game from a variety of angles -- footage that wasn't seen on the game broadcast or initial TV news reports -- in an attempt to determine exactly who did what.

Yet as much as the league would undoubtedly love to release its ruling on Sunday, when much of the nation is preoccupied with the NFL, Monday is more likely given how much has to be examined.

How closely will the two head coaches be looked at?

You can accuse Denver's George Karl of leaving his starters in way too long ... but you can't punish him for it. That's not an NBA crime. Not even if he did so as a way to convey his contempt for Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, as fallout from the offseason firing of Karl's close friend Larry Brown.

Thomas, by contrast, might be facing more than accusations. You can be sure the league will investigate suggestions that Collins' hard foul on Smith came via mandate from the Knicks' bench.

That sort of directive would be difficult to prove, but ESPN.com's Chris Sheridan reported Saturday night that Thomas, according to a member of the Nuggets' organization, warned Anthony not to venture near the paint not long before Collins' foul.

Which could put Thomas under the microscope as well, if similar accounts are conveyed to league personnel during Sunday's interview process.

Can players be traded while serving a suspension?

This is a pertinent question given Denver's well-chronicled pursuit of Allen Iverson.

The answer?

It appears to be, in the words of one Western Conference executive reached Saturday night, "a gray area."

It's believed that there is no language in the NBA's operations manual that specifically deals with teams' ability to trade a suspended player. The teams would likely require special permission from the league office if a player suspended for his actions Saturday night is needed by the Nuggets to complete an Iverson trade in coming days.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&id=2700058

[MosesGuthrie]

"What did the five fingers say to the face" "Sllllllllaaaaaap"

:lmao

[TheAdmiral#50]

Marcus Camby didn't do anything, most of the players on the court were trying to settle things down, Collins, Robinson, Jeffries, Melo and J.R. were doing the fighting.

[TDMVPDPOY]

1. New York's Mardy Collins took J.R. Smith down with the initial hard, two-handed foul that can't be pardoned no matter how frustrated the Knicks were with what they perceived as Denver intentionally running up the score.
there is nothing wrong in running up the score, doesnt say so in the rule book, wtf gives a shit about sportsmanship and shit like that, everyone athelete or team is about competitiveness, you dont see that highschool a few weeks ago complaining or going the isiah thomas route in that 150pt demolution.

[MosesGuthrie]

You honestly do not think sportsmanship matters?

[Duncanoypi]

http://home.comcast.net/~pirate451/chickens.jpg

[resistanze]

:lmao Melo's face! :lmao

[MosesGuthrie]

:lmao Good Job Duncanoypi! :tu

[exstatic]

You honestly do not think sportsmanship matters?
You haven't read many of his posts, have you? He's an idiot, trying to be all hard on an internet board.

[MosesGuthrie]

No I guess not....usually I try to avoid the losers, can't get them all I guess! :lmao

[Leetonidas]

I don't see why Andre Miller and Marcus Camby, along with David Lee, got ejected, but most likely because of the words they were exchanging.

[MosesGuthrie]

I think the refs just summarily ejected everyone on the court to try and calm things down.

[Chris Childs]

:bang

[exstatic]

I think the refs just summarily ejected everyone on the court to try and calm things down.
EXACTLY. It also sends a message for future brawls. What if it happened in the first, with your entire starting lineup in? They're gone.

[Chris Childs]

Why can't nobody just delete this thread

[MannyIsGod]

EXACTLY. It also sends a message for future brawls. What if it happened in the first, with your entire starting lineup in? They're gone.I really doubt Dick Bavetta's intentions included anything related to future brawls.

[boutons_]

Commentators for Warriors/Raps game announced that no penalties announced by NBA until Monday.

[angel_luv]

http://home.comcast.net/~pirate451/chickens.jpg



:lmao

[TDMVPDPOY]

You honestly do not think sportsmanship matters?
sportsmanship and running up the score is a different matter.

i do believe in sportsmanship, but there is nothing wrong in running up the score, it happens in most other sport. i see no reason why bball is any different.

[TDMVPDPOY]

Commentators for Warriors/Raps game announced that no penalties announced by NBA until Monday.
stern an stu dont deliver on sundays?

[MosesGuthrie]

i do believe in sportsmanship

You do? Which would explain this comment, right?


wtf gives a shit about sportsmanship and shit like that,

Running up the score is intentionally embarrasing your opponent, which IMO is bad sportsmanship.

[TDMVPDPOY]

Running up the score is intentionally embarrasing your opponent, which IMO is bad sportsmanship.

embarrasing for them, if they had the dignity they wouldve tried to win the game b4 it became a blowout.

this happens in every other sport, would you go for touchdown if ur team is winning? would you go for extra goal if ur team is winnin?

and theres a better view of the punch shown atm if you look around,

[MosesGuthrie]

this happens in every other sport, would you go for touchdown if ur team is winning? would you go for extra goal if ur team is winnin?

that doesn't make it right.

and no, if I was up by three td's I would not go for the extra score nor would I do for an extra goal if I was already up say 7-2 in soccer. I do agree that in basketball it is harder to keep the score down because of the shotclock but that is when you empty your bench.

[exstatic]

I really doubt Dick Bavetta's intentions included anything related to future brawls.
I'm not saying Bavetta drove the decision. I don't think he's smart enough to tie his own shoelaces. You think there weren't contingency instructions from the league for the refs, should the unthinkable happen again? Why else would they throw EVERYONE out? Kind of a baby/bathwater situation...also what leads me to think there will be "scorched earth" suspensions.

[MannyIsGod]

I can see that (if the shit hits the fan, throw them all out). I can't see suspensions much longer than 10 games though.

[exstatic]

Mose-check your PMs. :lol

[MosesGuthrie]

Of course if it were the Spurs.....Bavetta would have thrown them all out! :)

[RonMexico]

The reason why the Suns, the Nuggets, the Mavs and the Kings play their starters in a blow out is because they only win their championships in the individual stat column.

A little fight here and there is good for the NBA. It was getting kind of boring.

Please define a "blow-out." The Suns do not play their starters in blow-outs... I've made this point a hundred times, but your comment comes from the biggest jackass on this board, so I'm going to take it with a grain of salt.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

embarrasing for them, if they had the dignity they wouldve tried to win the game b4 it became a blowout.

this happens in every other sport, would you go for touchdown if ur team is winning? would you go for extra goal if ur team is winnin?

and theres a better view of the punch shown atm if you look around,

Because the Knicks obviously weren't trying to win the game before the brawl.

[dirk4mvp]

http://home.comcast.net/~pirate451/chickens.jpg


:lmao

[shelshor]

I think he got suspended for the rest of the season.

Frankly, I think Washington got a raw deal on that. Many of you have probably never seen the video, but as I remember it, during the fight Washington was sort of backed up alone on the court away from the fight, but on the alert for anyone approaching. Rudy started running over at him from about 15-20 feet away. Washington caught the movement toward him out of the corner of his eye, pivoted around and threw the punch. Rudy ran right into it at full speed which also helped make it more serious.

Now presumably Rudy was just going to be a peacemaker, but how did Washington know that? What he saw was another superbly fit, trained athlete, 6-6 and over 200 lbs, charging toward him in the middle of a brawl. He had a split second to react.

His split second reaction was to throw a punch and protect himself and his space. I can't fault him for that. I probably would have done the same. It was not done with malice or in any way an aggressive move TOWARD Rudy. Rudy put himself in harm's way. If he had stayed on the bench it would never have happened, but everyone sympathized with him because of the severity of the injury.

I know that Washington later apologized to Rudy and his feelings of remorse probably drove him for the rest of his career. Frankly, Washington was never the same player in my opinion, just like Rudy.
Yeah, it pretty well ended both their careers as effective players
Does anyone remember who Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hit and broke his hand, or how long that suspension was?

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

Doesn't look like the trade is happening anyway.

"I spoke to [general manager] Mark [Warkentien] yesterday, and he said it seemed like it was dying down. I didn't even bother calling him today," Karl told me before heading out the locker room door for the flight back to Denver, facing an immediate future without Iverson or Anthony ... and sounding convinced things are going to stay that way for a while.

thats just George playing off the media. He also said the Nuggets werent interested in AI.

The deal is still very much on. A sixers insider, who seems to have a good rep, said something should be done in the next 48hrs. King spoke to the Nuggets yesterday (or today maybe).

[Kori Ellis]

thats just George playing off the media. He also said the Nuggets werent interested in AI.

The deal is still very much on. A sixers insider, who seems to have a good rep, said something should be done in the next 48hrs. King spoke to the Nuggets yesterday (or today maybe).

That's good. I want the whole AI saga to come to a conclusion.

[RonMexico]

I'd love to see Dirk and Melo fight and time how long it would take each of them to run like sissies back to the locker room.

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

That's good. I want the whole AI saga to come to a conclusion.


yeh, i think the whole NBA fanbase are sick of this going on and on :lol

[mavs>spurs2]

Lol I don't blame J.R. Smith for getting in his face after getting clotheslined...anytime you take someone down like that you're asking for a fight. I'm still trying to figure out why Nate Robinsion, the smallest guy on the court, runs in throwing punches. If he doesn't throw that first punch then there is probably no fight to begin. Although if I was J.R. Smith I would have probably just laughed at his short ass. And that sucker punch by Melo was a wuss move.

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

what should happen to Isiah? surely he must be dealt with harshly. His comments seem to have started this whole thing, plus he told his players to break the feet of Bowen a while ago

[Obstructed_View]

Two games in a row that the Knicks are being beaten and Isiah sends a goon after someone on the opposing team. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to understand why Malone threw that forearm into Isiah's skull.

[boutons_]

December 18, 2006

Knicks’ Coach a Focus of Inquiry After Foul Ignited Garden Brawl

By HOWARD BECK

The N.B.A. is investigating whether Isiah Thomas, the president and coach of the Knicks, ordered a hard foul that touched off a brawl with the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, several people involved in the investigation said yesterday.

The Nuggets, according to those people, are pointing to an exchange between Thomas and Carmelo Anthony — part of which was captured by the MSG Network — that seemed to convey a threat. None of the people who spoke about the exchange wanted to be identified because the investigation was continuing.

Ten players were ejected after the fight, which started when Mardy Collins, a Knicks rookie, clobbered J. R. Smith of the Nuggets as he was driving for a basket. Some of these players, and possibly Thomas, are expected to receive suspensions today once the league reviews the MSG tape and interviews players, coaches and security personnel. There is no known N.B.A. precedent for punishing a coach for instigating a fight.

With 1 minute 32 seconds left in the game, the MSG broadcast focused on Thomas while Denver’s Marcus Camby shot free throws. The Nuggets were leading by 117-100. Thomas, standing on the sideline, his arms folded and his jaw tight, bites his lower lip and then starts talking to a Nuggets player. The player is not in the camera shot, but the broadcaster Mike Breen notes that Thomas is talking to Anthony.

There is no audio of Thomas, but he appears to say: “Hey, don’t go to the basket right now. It wouldn’t be nice.” Seconds later, Thomas cocks his head, holds out his right palm and, with a slight smile, adds, “Just letting you know.”

The implication was that any Nuggets player who did might get fouled hard. With 1:15 to play, and the Knicks trailing by 119-100, that is exactly what happened.

The broadcast did not capture the entire exchange between Thomas and Anthony, however, as the network toggled between cameras. Thomas also told Anthony, the N.B.A.’s leading scorer and one of its premier players, that he “shouldn’t be in the game right now,” because the score was lopsided and the Knicks had removed most of their starters, according to an associate who spoke with Thomas yesterday. That message was not intended as a threat, the associate said, but, by adding, “It wouldn’t be nice,” the message was intended as a plea not to unnecessarily embarrass the Knicks further. The associate was not authorized to speak on Thomas’s behalf and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity.

Calvin Andrews, Anthony’s agent, confirmed last night that Thomas had told Anthony to stay away from the area under the basket. Andrews indicated that Anthony gave that account to National Basketball Association officials earlier yesterday. Thomas also spoke to league officials. The issue for N.B.A. officials is how to interpret Thomas’s words, and his intent. Was Thomas merely advising a young star that he should not embarrass the Knicks by running up the score? Or was he issuing a warning?

After the game — but before Thomas’s comments came to light — Thomas gave reporters his account of that same conversation with Anthony.

“I just said to him: ‘You’re up 19 with a minute and a half to go. You and Camby really shouldn’t be in the game right now,’ ” Thomas said. “We had surrendered. And those guys shouldn’t have been in the game at that time. They were sticking it to us pretty good. They were having their way with us pretty good. I think J. R. Smith had just made one dunk where he reverses it and spins in the air. I thought that Mardy didn’t want to have our home crowd see that again and he fouled him.”

The Knicks were off yesterday, and team officials declined to comment on the incident or Thomas’s actions. Neither James L. Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, which owns the Knicks; nor Steve Mills, the Garden president, will be commenting on the matter, a company spokesman said.

“Isiah will address any questions about it tomorrow,” the spokesman, Barry Watkins, said.

This was already a perilous time for Thomas, who has guided the Knicks as the team president since Dec. 22, 2003. In June, Thomas was ordered by Dolan to coach the team and was given a one-year ultimatum — to show progress or be dismissed as coach and president. Four days before the brawl, Dolan said that Thomas “absolutely” had the entire season to save his job. But Dolan also said that the progress to date was insufficient. The Knicks have won only 9 of their first 26 games.

As the losses have mounted, Thomas has occasionally lashed out at opponents and the Knicks’ fans. On Nov. 4, Thomas criticized the Indiana Pacers for celebrating too much in the final minutes of a victory in the Knicks’ home opener. The next week, Thomas took issue with Bruce Bowen of the San Antonio Spurs, accusing him of dangerous defensive tactics that led to a sprained ankle by the Knicks’ Steve Francis. When the teams played again that week, and Bowen used the same tactic, Thomas had to be restrained from going after him. Thomas was also heard shouting to his players, telling them to “Break his feet,” referring to Bowen. Eight days later, Thomas was ejected from a home game against Boston for yelling at the referees. It is unclear whether the fight, and Thomas’s possible role in it, will impact Dolan’s thinking.

There is little ambiguity about the fight itself. It was the ugliest scene on an N.B.A. court since November 2004, when a brawl between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons spilled into the stands at the Palace of Auburn Hills. That infamous fight, which included players punching fans in both the stands and on the court, caused the league to institute rules for player and fan conduct and to institute harsher penalties for players who cross the line.

No fans were involved in Saturday’s melee, although two players — Denver’s Smith and the Knicks’ Nate Robinson — fell into the first row of baseline seats as they traded blows. The biggest blow was landed by Anthony, who — after the fight had appeared to settle down — walked up to Collins and punched him in the face.

Based on past N.B.A. actions, it seems likely that Anthony will be suspended for at least 5 to 10 games. Lengthy suspensions will also likely be given to Smith and Robinson. Collins will probably be suspended at least two games. The Knicks’ Jared Jeffries initially tried to play peacemaker, but he could draw a suspension — for chasing Anthony down the court after Anthony punched Collins. Jeffries tripped, got up and started toward Anthony again, but was held back by the Knicks assistant Mark Aguirre, among others.

Two other players could be suspended for leaving the bench area. Under N.B.A. rules, any player who is not in the game must stay by the bench when a fight occurs. If a player crosses the sideline onto the court, he is automatically suspended. In the videotape, the Knicks’ Jerome James can be seen walking onto the court before a team staff member holds him back. At the end of the melee, the Nuggets’ Nenê — who also was not in the game — can be seen tussling with Collins.

“We’re going to review the incident in its entirety,” Tim Frank, an N.B.A. spokesman, said yesterday afternoon. “Until then, it would not be appropriate for us to comment.”

Liz Robbins contributed reporting.

[ducks]

from that article
looks like thomas could be in DEEP TROUBLE and could get most of the punishment

[milkyway21]

isaiah Thomas is such a sore loser.

he shld also be suspended about his statements to opponents, about his playing tactics("break Bowen's legs" :huh),and shld be given a dose of his own medicine-A WARNING just like what he did to Bowen, otherwise another BASKETBRAWL like this might happen again.

[SequSpur]

JR Smith wasn't really fouled that hard, the dude just prevented him from going for another reverse slam.

JR Smith got in the dude's face and some knick dude came flying in there and tackled him.

Then, it was basically over and Melo through a haymaker.

That was basically it. Isiah didn't do jack. He didn't order nothing. Some of you take crap to the extreme and try to find something within something that is really not there or it doesn't even matter.

Typical Spurs fans.

Sometimes I wish the Spurs would actually stop somebody from posterizing Duncan once in awhile.

[RonMexico]

JR Smith wasn't really fouled that hard, the dude just prevented him from going for another reverse slam.

JR Smith got in the dude's face and some knick dude came flying in there and tackled him.

Then, it was basically over and Melo through a haymaker.

That was basically it. Isiah didn't do jack. He didn't order nothing. Some of you take crap to the extreme and try to find something within something that is really not there or it doesn't even matter.

Typical Spurs fans.

Sometimes I wish the Spurs would actually stop somebody from posterizing Duncan once in awhile.

You are such a fucking idiot... #1 - Mardy Collins is from Temple where I'm sure he learned the art of a hard foul from Chaney. #2 - If you didn't learn from the Bruce Bown incident, this is exactly the type of thing Isiah would order... "the dude just prevented him from going for another reverse slam" - do you sound like a jackass on purpose? I don't understand how you can think that when a player goes for another's neck on a fastbreak, it is simply preventing a spectacular dunk. #3 - If Isiah's bitchiness isn't evident, just look how Nate Robinson's (or "some knick dude" as you call him) reputation has changed from the darling 5'7" slam dunk champ and popular U of Washington guard to a little thug in a matter of months.

[leemajors]

December 18, 2006

Knicks’ Coach a Focus of Inquiry After Foul Ignited Garden Brawl

By HOWARD BECK

The N.B.A. is investigating whether Isiah Thomas, the president and coach of the Knicks, ordered a hard foul that touched off a brawl with the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, several people involved in the investigation said yesterday.

The Nuggets, according to those people, are pointing to an exchange between Thomas and Carmelo Anthony — part of which was captured by the MSG Network — that seemed to convey a threat. None of the people who spoke about the exchange wanted to be identified because the investigation was continuing.

Ten players were ejected after the fight, which started when Mardy Collins, a Knicks rookie, clobbered J. R. Smith of the Nuggets as he was driving for a basket. Some of these players, and possibly Thomas, are expected to receive suspensions today once the league reviews the MSG tape and interviews players, coaches and security personnel. There is no known N.B.A. precedent for punishing a coach for instigating a fight.

With 1 minute 32 seconds left in the game, the MSG broadcast focused on Thomas while Denver’s Marcus Camby shot free throws. The Nuggets were leading by 117-100. Thomas, standing on the sideline, his arms folded and his jaw tight, bites his lower lip and then starts talking to a Nuggets player. The player is not in the camera shot, but the broadcaster Mike Breen notes that Thomas is talking to Anthony.

There is no audio of Thomas, but he appears to say: “Hey, don’t go to the basket right now. It wouldn’t be nice.” Seconds later, Thomas cocks his head, holds out his right palm and, with a slight smile, adds, “Just letting you know.”

The implication was that any Nuggets player who did might get fouled hard. With 1:15 to play, and the Knicks trailing by 119-100, that is exactly what happened.

The broadcast did not capture the entire exchange between Thomas and Anthony, however, as the network toggled between cameras. Thomas also told Anthony, the N.B.A.’s leading scorer and one of its premier players, that he “shouldn’t be in the game right now,” because the score was lopsided and the Knicks had removed most of their starters, according to an associate who spoke with Thomas yesterday. That message was not intended as a threat, the associate said, but, by adding, “It wouldn’t be nice,” the message was intended as a plea not to unnecessarily embarrass the Knicks further. The associate was not authorized to speak on Thomas’s behalf and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity.

Calvin Andrews, Anthony’s agent, confirmed last night that Thomas had told Anthony to stay away from the area under the basket. Andrews indicated that Anthony gave that account to National Basketball Association officials earlier yesterday. Thomas also spoke to league officials. The issue for N.B.A. officials is how to interpret Thomas’s words, and his intent. Was Thomas merely advising a young star that he should not embarrass the Knicks by running up the score? Or was he issuing a warning?

After the game — but before Thomas’s comments came to light — Thomas gave reporters his account of that same conversation with Anthony.

“I just said to him: ‘You’re up 19 with a minute and a half to go. You and Camby really shouldn’t be in the game right now,’ ” Thomas said. “We had surrendered. And those guys shouldn’t have been in the game at that time. They were sticking it to us pretty good. They were having their way with us pretty good. I think J. R. Smith had just made one dunk where he reverses it and spins in the air. I thought that Mardy didn’t want to have our home crowd see that again and he fouled him.”

The Knicks were off yesterday, and team officials declined to comment on the incident or Thomas’s actions. Neither James L. Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, which owns the Knicks; nor Steve Mills, the Garden president, will be commenting on the matter, a company spokesman said.

“Isiah will address any questions about it tomorrow,” the spokesman, Barry Watkins, said.

This was already a perilous time for Thomas, who has guided the Knicks as the team president since Dec. 22, 2003. In June, Thomas was ordered by Dolan to coach the team and was given a one-year ultimatum — to show progress or be dismissed as coach and president. Four days before the brawl, Dolan said that Thomas “absolutely” had the entire season to save his job. But Dolan also said that the progress to date was insufficient. The Knicks have won only 9 of their first 26 games.

As the losses have mounted, Thomas has occasionally lashed out at opponents and the Knicks’ fans. On Nov. 4, Thomas criticized the Indiana Pacers for celebrating too much in the final minutes of a victory in the Knicks’ home opener. The next week, Thomas took issue with Bruce Bowen of the San Antonio Spurs, accusing him of dangerous defensive tactics that led to a sprained ankle by the Knicks’ Steve Francis. When the teams played again that week, and Bowen used the same tactic, Thomas had to be restrained from going after him. Thomas was also heard shouting to his players, telling them to “Break his feet,” referring to Bowen. Eight days later, Thomas was ejected from a home game against Boston for yelling at the referees. It is unclear whether the fight, and Thomas’s possible role in it, will impact Dolan’s thinking.

There is little ambiguity about the fight itself. It was the ugliest scene on an N.B.A. court since November 2004, when a brawl between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons spilled into the stands at the Palace of Auburn Hills. That infamous fight, which included players punching fans in both the stands and on the court, caused the league to institute rules for player and fan conduct and to institute harsher penalties for players who cross the line.

No fans were involved in Saturday’s melee, although two players — Denver’s Smith and the Knicks’ Nate Robinson — fell into the first row of baseline seats as they traded blows. The biggest blow was landed by Anthony, who — after the fight had appeared to settle down — walked up to Collins and punched him in the face.

Based on past N.B.A. actions, it seems likely that Anthony will be suspended for at least 5 to 10 games. Lengthy suspensions will also likely be given to Smith and Robinson. Collins will probably be suspended at least two games. The Knicks’ Jared Jeffries initially tried to play peacemaker, but he could draw a suspension — for chasing Anthony down the court after Anthony punched Collins. Jeffries tripped, got up and started toward Anthony again, but was held back by the Knicks assistant Mark Aguirre, among others.

Two other players could be suspended for leaving the bench area. Under N.B.A. rules, any player who is not in the game must stay by the bench when a fight occurs. If a player crosses the sideline onto the court, he is automatically suspended. In the videotape, the Knicks’ Jerome James can be seen walking onto the court before a team staff member holds him back. At the end of the melee, the Nuggets’ Nenê — who also was not in the game — can be seen tussling with Collins.

“We’re going to review the incident in its entirety,” Tim Frank, an N.B.A. spokesman, said yesterday afternoon. “Until then, it would not be appropriate for us to comment.”

Liz Robbins contributed reporting.

the steven a smith interview on sportscenter tonight was interesting - he said Karl may have left the starters in so long to rub it in isiah's face for LB - he said NC alumni are all up in arms about how LB was dismissed. interesting conspiracy theory if nothing else.

[Kori Ellis]

That was basically it. Isiah didn't do jack. He didn't order nothing. Some of you take crap to the extreme and try to find something within something that is really not there or it doesn't even matter.

You are an idiot if you think Isiah didn't order the original foul.

How do you explain this ..

There is no audio of Thomas, but he appears to say: “Hey, don’t go to the basket right now. It wouldn’t be nice.” Seconds later, Thomas cocks his head, holds out his right palm and, with a slight smile, adds, “Just letting you know.”

It's clear as day when you see the video tape that's what he said. So what's an explanation for it besides that he told his players to take down anyone going to the basket?

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

How long was Chaney out when he ordered the flagrant which resulted in a player breaking his arm?

the remainder of the season

[Kamnik]

i couldnt agree more

i watched his post game comments-it looked like me he had some nervous bad feeling about it (imo it could be very possible that he ordered a "hard" foul)

Isiah Thomas is a coach without class whatsoever

told you so ;)

watch his postgame comments! he seems as nervous and as guilty as he can be :drunk

he is a punk coach and i hope he gets fired and ridiculed by the league

[Kamnik]

time for Knicks owner to fire Thomas and hire Carlesimo

[MannyIsGod]

I gotta admit, I was skeptical of the league being able to pin anything in Isiah. Then I saw the video footage. BUSTED LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. Its so obvious by his body language and by what he said that he knew what was coming.

[Kamnik]

I gotta admit, I was skeptical of the league being able to pin anything in Isiah. Then I saw the video footage. BUSTED LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. Its so obvious by his body language and by what he said that he knew what was coming.

could you please provide the link to the video footage?

[mountainballer]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=sheridan_chris&id=2700476

NEW YORK -- Stu Jackson was not a happy man when I reached him by cell phone Sunday morning, which means it'll be a Black Monday for Carmelo Anthony, Nate Robinson, J.R. Smith and a whole bunch of others.

"We're taking this very seriously," Jackson told ESPN.com, giving an early indication that he won't be handing out garden-variety punishments to the Knicks and the Nuggets for their Saturday night fight.

Penalties are expected to be announced Monday, and expect Jackson to come down hard, not because this was as bad of a fight as the one at the Palace of Auburn Hills just over two years ago, which it wasn't, but because it reminded everybody of the Palace brawl.

Three or four years ago this type of altercation would have been written off with a bunch of one- to four-game suspensions, but the game changed after Ron Artest went into the stands and Jermaine O'Neal slugged a fan who came onto the court. And with these types of events now being viewed through a post-Palace prism, with the NBA still reeling from such a major black eye, and with this fight having taken place right in David Stern's backyard, the smart money says the punishments are going to raise some eyebrows.

Here's an educated guess at how Jackson will rule:

Anthony will get hit the hardest for his sucker punch that decked Mardy Collins, a haymaker that could have become a secondary flash point that turned this into an even bigger brawl. Prediction: 8 games.

Robinson actually did provide the flash point that turned this from an altercation to a fight, running into the fray and grappling with J.R. Smith in a tussle that nearly spilled into the first row of seats. Prediction: 6 games.

Smith had every right to get up and confront Mardy Collins after the hard foul, but he had no right to throw a punch at Robinson just before the two were separated. Prediction: 3 games.

Jared Jeffries was held back at midcourt from going after Anthony, who backpedaled away after slugging Collins. But Jeffries was ready to take this fight to an even more chaotic level, and they'll get him for intent on this one. Prediction: 1 game.

Collins' foul was so egregiously flagrant, he stands a better than fair chance of being hit with more than the standard one-game suspension for a flagrant category 2 foul. He also committed a similar foul the previous night in Indiana in the waning moments of another lopsided loss. Prediction: 2 games.

Jerome James of the Knicks and Nene of the Nuggets appeared to leave the bench area during the fight, a well-established no-no. Prediction: 1 game each.

Isiah Thomas is the trickiest call of the bunch, and a lot will depend on what he tells Jackson -- and what Anthony tells Jackson -- over the phone. Anthony says Thomas, who was angry that the Nuggets were still playing four starters despite being up 19 with under 2 minutes left, told him a minute or so before the brawl that he should stay out of the paint -- pretty much a warning that a hard foul was coming. That would make Thomas culpable for helping incite the brawl, and instigators never get off lightly with Stu and his boss, David Stern. Prediction: 3 games.

Chris Sheridan covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMO this prediction is pretty accurate and also think the call on Isah is tricky. but that is the point where I have a different view.
IMO Isiah either goes free or he will get a much longer suspension.
why?
if it can be proved that Isah somehow ordered the brutal foul (and many evidences point that direction) it means a very serious delinquency, not only breaking the rules of the league, or of sportmanship.
this would IMO have to lead to much more than just a 3 games suspension.
but if it can't be proved, that Isah ordered the foul, he of course can't be suspended, not even for a single game.

[Bruno]

To me, the main persons to blame are :

Isiah Thomas: When you're a coach you can't ask a player to do a hard foul that risks to injure a player. He should be waived for his attitude and for the whole Knicks fiasco.

Nate Robinson : This guy is maybe the dumbest player in the league. He is the guy who has started the brawl by his acts. Evne when he plays or when he does a dunk contest, he seems to be dumb.

Carmelo Anthony : coward and stupid. He should have gone to college.

[Bruno]

BTW, an interesting read about dumbass robinson :

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/story/481123p-404884c.html


Little Nate can spell big trouble

BY FRANK ISOLA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Nate Robinson is, in his humble opinion, "Nate the Great."

And then there was the embarrassing moment three weeks ago when he tried to bounce the ball off the floor and dunk it against the Cleveland Cavaliers, a play that was ruled a travel and made the Knicks look like an undisciplined group of street-ballers.

Robinson's explanation was as peculiar as his decision to attempt the dunk in the first place.

"That's why they call me Spontaneous Nate," he said.

Spontaneous, yes. Great? Not quite. And now Robinson has a new nickname: Instigator. His role in Saturday's Knicks-Nuggets fight cannot be underestimated. Instead of pulling Mardy Collins away from J.R. Smith and allowing the referees to intervene, Robinson went after Smith and ended up fighting with the Denver guard and spilling into the front row.

Robinson and Carmelo Anthony figure to receive lengthy suspensions because both were responsible for escalating the situation.

After the game, Robinson said he did not regret his actions and made the stunning revelation that Collins' flagrant takedown was not only "a good, clean hard foul" but that it was premeditated.

"For what they did as in keeping guys in, I knew a foul was going to come," Robinson said Saturday. "A hard one because we're not going to let guys keep dunking when they're up 20 and they have their starters in. It was a good clean hard foul. After that, it went downhill from there."

Robinson later added: "They wanted to embarrass us. It was a slap in the face to us as a team and a franchise and we weren't going to let that happen."

Clearly, Robinson forgot what he did against Cleveland or what he said after the game upon hearing that Isiah Thomas told the media that Robinson would not try that dunk again. Robinson agreed but quickly added he would try it only if the Knicks are "ahead by 20."

Since Robinson joined the Knicks last season as a throw-in in the Kurt Thomas-Quentin Richardson trade, he has become a fan favorite because of his incredible athletic ability. Many of the Knicks' marketing campaigns involve Robinson. Last week, the Knicks handed out life-sized posters of the diminutive second-year player. Robinson's popularity soared last year when the 5-9 guard won the slam dunk contest during All-Star Weekend in Houston and peaked again at the Garden this season when he blocked a shot from Yao Ming.

But to teammates and coaches he also can be the annoying little brother who talks too much and can't control his emotions. Larry Brown tried to get Robinson sent to the Developmental League last season, only to be rebuffed by management.

Before the Knicks' home opener last month, MSG Network recorded Robinson outside the locker room posing and dancing for the cameras. Teammates tried to stop him but Robinson continued dancing. Robinson also has earned a reputation as a bench jockey who trash-talks to players on the floor. He also has been criticized by teammates for, ironically enough, showboating.

Last year, Robinson was involved in two fights with teammates. He went after Jerome James with a broom during a practice and then had to be separated from fighting Malik Rose in the shower. The shower fight prompted a veteran teammate to give Robinson another nickname.

"That's just Nate," the Knick said. "He's a jerk."

[boutons_]

December 18, 2006
Sports of The Times

Look for a Mastermind in the Shadow of a Melee

By SELENA ROBERTS

It is testimony to Isiah Thomas’s narcissistic powers of manipulation to witness the Knicks blithely consume his vigilante coaching philosophy.

As dupes of Thomas’s deliverance, the players believed they were fighting to save their face Saturday night, but they were fighting to save his.

It is proof of Thomas’s seductive communication skills that the Knicks still circle him like a campfire to hear him rationalize his childhood survivor tales from Chicago’s mean streets as an excuse to wrest revenge on Main Street.

In front of holiday-happy children at the World’s Most Famous Arena, the lemming in Mardy Collins didn’t viciously clothesline Nuggets guard J. R. Smith as payback for a fancy dunk that embarrassed the Knicks, but as retribution for a humiliating blowout of Thomas.

There are no double-digit losses to Thomas. Just scores to settle.

“Hey, don’t go to the basket right now,” Thomas appears to say to Denver’s Carmelo Anthony with 1 minute 32 seconds left in another home-court rout of the Knicks.

Seventeen seconds later, Collins threw Smith down — as he drove through the paint. And a melee was on. In the mix of fists thrown by several players, including Anthony, and while Smith and Nate Robinson wrestled in the laps of first-row fans, Thomas remained unruffled in his Fifth Avenue threads, untouched by a fight that he all but instigated.

That’s the way it is with instigators. Others were bloodied for Thomas in Madison Square Garden’s twist on “The Sopranos.”

But as Commissioner David Stern reviews the footage of the Knicks-Nuggets brawl in the N.B.A.’s post-Palace disciplinary era, as he deliberates what may be understandably harsh penalties for player conduct, he should also punish Thomas for a tacit and direct pattern of bounty hunting.

Thomas doesn’t take hits; he orders them.

He didn’t fault his inept preparedness or his players’ passive performance for the Knicks’ disastrous home opener against the Pacers in early November, but he did issue a vengeful warning to an opponent he felt had dunked on his team’s misery.

“We’ll have a long memory,” Thomas said. “And one day, we’ll be the team that’s on top, doing the kicking and the stepping.” He added, “We’ll be pretty unforgiving.”

•

Perhaps “the top” was a stretch to Thomas’s impatience. On Friday night at Indiana, with the Knicks searching for crawl space in the Eastern Conference, Collins — the same player who collared Smith — committed a flagrant foul against the Pacers.

The Knicks were down by 16 with less than two minutes left in the game. Where is the Knicks’ we’re-not-going-to-take-this spirit in the first quarter or the second or the third? To watch the Knicks in a blowout is to see a team strut without any feathers. http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

Is any team more defiant after 20-point defeats? Does any team have more practitioners of false bravado?

Collins isn’t the only takedown artist on the team, but he makes for an easy go-to ruffian for Thomas. He is a rookie and an educated enforcer. Collins played for Temple when Coach John Chaney once ordered a goon to take out the competition.

Ruthlessness is a quality Thomas embraces. He once set picks with devilish elbows as the championship ringleader of the Detroit Bad Boys. Yet, somehow, he didn’t appreciate the aggressive defense Bruce Bowen played while a guarding jump shot against the Knicks in a mid-November game.

In an unhinged moment, Thomas angrily confronted Bowen from the sideline, then urged his team to simply break the feet of Bowen, the Spurs’ fabled defender.

“Break his neck,” that’s what Bowen said he heard.

Why isn’t dirty turnabout fair play with Thomas? With his career at a fragile win-or-else pivot point, with his team mired in frustrating inconsistency, with his insecurity on alert, he absorbs every loss as a personal slight and perceives every slight as a personal affront.

Every defeat is a referendum on him. For Thomas to take the blame for a blowout is to be accountable for his failures. Every player’s miscue is a reflection on his roster assemblage. For Thomas to scold a star over a mistake is to question his own decisions. Every critic is a threat. For Thomas to be shown up by Gregg Popovich’s Spurs or George Karl’s Nuggets is to have Larry Brown’s pals rub the past in his face.

This is the paranoia of perception — and it’s a distraction. Thomas isn’t coaching a game as much as he is strategizing his image. How does he look in this win or that loss?

Thomas has gone into his West Side of Chicago mode — punch, fight, win — even though he left for the N.B.A. luxury life almost three decades ago. And he has fallen back on his street shtick — get them before they get you — even though he has been a self-saboteur at the Garden.

•

The Knicks’ 9-17 record is a product of Thomas. Not of the referees who are out to get Eddy Curry, as Thomas has said. Not of the hostile Garden fans who undercut the Knicks’ confidence, as Thomas has complained.

In less than three years, Thomas has spent more than $400 million for a team that has yet to validate him as the Knicks’ president and coach. Anyone who illuminates this math is to be crushed by Thomas.

He has the gullible hit men to do it. Only Stern can stop him.

E-mail: [email protected]


([email protected])

[Bruno]

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/story/481081p-404847c.html


Blame Isiah for brawl by Mike Lupica

Try he may, but Thomas can't laugh off
reports he threatened Nuggets' star

Isiah Thomas blames the Nuggets for Saturday night's ugly brawl.
Here is Isiah Thomas on Saturday night, his Knicks being run out of the Garden and out onto Eighth Ave. again, this time by the Denver Nuggets.

Here is Thomas with a minute and 32 seconds left, right before the stupid playground fight between the Knicks and Nuggets is about to start, and he is doing all he has really done since coming to this city: smiling and talking. He can't win the game. He just talks one.

On the television broadcast of the game, announcer Mike Breen wonders why Thomas is smiling, then points out that the coach of the Knicks is talking to Denver's Carmelo Anthony, who has been the best player on the court all night, an attraction who nearly sold out the Garden for a change, something Thomas' Knicks cannot legitimately do on their own.

According to published reports, confirmed for me yesterday by somebody from the Nuggets, Anthony told his coaches after the game that Thomas was telling him he better "stay out of the paint." And that he, Anthony, should tell his teammates to stay out of the paint. In basketball, that means stay away from the basket, because if you go near the basket, somebody is going to foul you and foul you hard.

If Thomas said it, it is the same as a threat, and it means that when David Stern, the NBA commissioner, starts handing out suspensions to the Knicks and Nuggets for the ugly scene at the Garden on Saturday night, Isiah Thomas should be first in line.

Stern can do something today that James Dolan, Thomas' boss, is unwilling to do, which means tell Thomas to go away, even if it is for only a few games, even if it will probably help the Knicks, since it turns out Thomas is about as good coaching this Knicks team as he was assembling it.

Carmelo Anthony might have finished everything Saturday night by throwing a sucker-punch at Mardy Collins when the whole thing, which had already spilled into the second row of seats, should have been over. The real suckers are people who believe Anthony is the headline here because he was the headliner of the game, the leading scorer in the league. This incident doesn't come close to playing out the way it does if Collins doesn't throw down Denver's J.R. Smith the way he does with 1:15 left, if Nate Robinson of the Knicks, barking away, doesn't then try to punk everybody in sight.

If what Anthony told the Nuggets is true - and why would he make it up? - then the coach of the Knicks is the one who put everything in motion Saturday night, like a baseball manager telling his pitcher to throw at somebody.

The night before, Collins had come off the bench to commit a flagrant foul as the Knicks were getting blown out in Indianapolis. Now Thomas puts him into this game with just over two minutes to go, and then a half-minute later, Thomas is talking and talking to Anthony while Marcus Camby is shooting free throws. Then Collins is bringing down Smith from behind the way football safeties bring down wide receivers in the open field.

Smith gets up, good and hot at being cheap-shooted this way. Right away, Robinson is on him, as if Smith was the one who had committed the flagrant foul. Then the two of them are flying into the stands, sending patrons and photographers flying. You wonder how James Dolan would feel about all this if the action had happened on the other side of the basket, if Robinson and Smith had ended up in Dolan's lap, or his wife's.

But again: According to the coach of the Knicks, this was Denver's fault. They were running up the score, as if that justifies the shot Collins gave Smith. They had their best players on the court when they were ahead 20 points in the end. Maybe that is why there was not a single sentence of accountability from Thomas afterward. But, then, there never is.

He's got the highest payroll in the league, the Knicks have lost 150 games since he took over running the team three years ago, the current record is 9-17, the team is drawing its smallest crowds in over a decade. No matter. He never takes any blame, and Dolan never assigns any, and when Thomas gets to the interview room, he points a finger at the other team and says, They did it!

"We had surrendered," Thomas says of the incident later, still smiling afterward, laughing one time.

All season long, the Knicks lose, and then Thomas talks about how hard they fought afterward. Now he tries to make surrender sound heroic. He doesn't just talk, he talks out of both sides of his mouth.

Thomas will deny everything today. He would deny the record, if he could. He will talk about how the old Knicks used to get into fights all the time. They sure did. And most of the time it cost them big. At least those teams, in the '90s, fought for the title, not to save face on another lost night at the Garden.

"They're embarrassing us," Thomas kept saying in the fourth quarter, according to his own guys. "They're embarrassing us."

The Knicks, Isiah Thomas' Knicks, don't need the other team to do that. They do it to themselves, and to the Garden, all the time.

[RonMexico]

To me, the main persons to blame are :

Isiah Thomas: When you're a coach you can't ask a player to do a hard foul that risks to injure a player. He should be waived for his attitude and for the whole Knicks fiasco.

Nate Robinson : This guy is maybe the dumbest player in the league. He is the guy who has started the brawl by his acts. Evne when he plays or when he does a dunk contest, he seems to be dumb.

Carmelo Anthony : coward and stupid. He should have gone to college.

Melo did go to college.

I'm tired of everyone calling it a sucker punch - Melo takes 3 seconds to run out of the grasp of his coaches and then takes a face-to-face punch/slap... sucker punches are more blind-sided hits... he shouldn't have run away like that, but who wouldn't be scared with Jared Jefferies coming after you? Oh, wait...

[Bruno]

Melo did go to college.


My bad, maybe he should have stayed more than one year in college.

Melo shouldn't have gone in the brawl just to give a punch to a guy. If he thought that what Collins has done deserve a fight, he should have fight him as a man instead of giving him a cheap shot and running away just after.

[nkdlunch]

that Nate Robinson is like an annoying little poodle bitch. I would have picked his ass up and dunked him in the basket.

He was the first to escalate this shit.

[Kori Ellis]

could you please provide the link to the video footage?


http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/index

Click on the link under the main picture that says, "Warns Melo".

[boutons_]

December 18, 2006

Anthony Punches Hole in a Rebuilt Reputation

By LIZ ROBBINS

Carmelo Anthony wanted to be a first-time All-Star this season, and was playing like an M.V.P. contender.

Anthony, the Denver Nuggets’ fourth-year forward, wanted to be equal to his draft classmates LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, and was outshining them this season by leading the N.B.A. in scoring.

He was the best player on the United States men’s basketball team at the world championship last summer, when he remade his image on the court.

And after spending $1.5 million to open a youth center with his name on it in Baltimore on Thursday, Anthony, 22, appeared to have the N.B.A. in the palm of his hand.

But with one punch Saturday night, he might have undone all the good he had created.

Anthony is expected to be suspended today for his role in a brawl at Madison Square Garden in which 10 players were ejected. Anthony sucker-punched the Knicks’ Mardy Collins in retaliation for Collins’s flagrant foul on J. R. Smith.

“Last night’s altercation with the Knicks escalated further than it should have,” Anthony said in a statement. “I take full responsibility for my actions in the matter. In the heat of the moment, I let my emotions get the best of me. I apologize to the fans, the Denver Nuggets, the N.B.A., my mother and my family for the embarrassment I have caused them.”

The N.B.A. was also investigating the role of Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas, who might have helped establish the contentious atmosphere by ordering a flagrant foul.

In a telephone interview last night, Anthony’s agent, Calvin Andrews, confirmed reports that Anthony told league officials that Thomas, in an on-court conversation 17 seconds before the incident, had warned Anthony not to take the ball to the basket.

A punch warrants an automatic one-game suspension, but judging by the stringent standards that Commissioner David Stern has imposed on players the last two seasons, Anthony’s suspension will be far longer. A long suspension for Anthony could have a devastating effect on the Nuggets (13-9), currently in seventh place in the Western Conference.

For a day, Denver had to put aside efforts to acquire 76ers guard Allen Iverson, as they participated in the league’s investigation.

“He’s been laying low, in the house, very quiet,” Andrews said of Anthony. “He knows it was not the right move, that he must deal with it and face it.”

In his statement, Anthony also extended his remorse to Collins. “I also want to make a personal apology to Mardy Collins and his family,” he said. “My actions were inexcusable, and I am sorry for making this an even more embarrassing situation.”

That Anthony was still in a game with Denver leading by 19 late in the fourth quarter clearly upset Thomas, and he admitted telling that to Anthony as the fight broke up.

Thomas tried to put the onus on Nuggets Coach George Karl. The two had verbally sparred last summer over how Thomas had treated Larry Brown, a close friend of Karl’s who was fired by the Knicks in June.

Karl was not available to comment yesterday.

After the game, which Denver won, 123-100, Karl told reporters: “We were conservative and substituted conservatively in the second half. Sometimes you just have to finish the game with the guys on the court.”

The Nuggets had been guilty of blowing three double-digit leads in the fourth quarter this season, including against the Knicks. Denver had a 12-point lead early in the quarter of the Knicks’ 109-107 victory on Nov. 8.

Anthony’s league-leading 31.6 points a game have come efficiently. He is averaging 37.5 minutes and shooting 50.3 percent from the floor while raising his assists to a career-high 4.1 a game.

Over the past two years, Anthony has tried to overcome missteps that have had public ramifications. In 2004, he appeared in a controversial video that threatened those who inform the police about criminal activity.

He was also caught on the team plane with marijuana in his backpack that belonged to a friend. On the day he signed his five-year, $80 million contract this past July, the police found marijuana in his car, which was being driven by another friend.

In an October interview, Anthony insisted that he had matured on and off the court. “You learn from mistakes,” he said.

Anthony had produced a crisp documentary-type commercial showing how hard he works off the court and the time he spends doing community service. They are genuine pursuits, according to those closest to him and several league officials.

“What makes this all the more painful is that this was one of the most important weeks of my life,” Anthony said in his statement. “I just realized one of my biggest dreams when we opened the Youth Center in Baltimore that bears my name. To see the community excited and hundreds of kids smiling was an incredible feeling. Now the thought of thousands of kids seeing this incident on TV pains me. This is not the example I want to set.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/sports/basketball/18anthony.html?pagewanted=print

===============

"This is not the example I want to set"

Nobody forced you, punk. Go back to Baltimore and hang out with your criminal/gangtsa friends.

[DarkReign]

After going to my regular hockey site, I watch NBA brawls and laugh hysterically. (except the Palace, because it went to the stands, and just got progressively worse...)

Weak brawl. The lowest form of weak. Weak to the nth power.

Here are some brawls.

1984 Quebec Nordiques vs Montreal Canadians (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYnfRDwhaLM)

Greatest Brawl...EVER! 1987 World Juniors, Canada vs Russia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ydbATVriqA)

Avs vs Wings. nuff said (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pab978XyR3E) (wish it wasnt a production, just the game)

Caps vs Thrashers 06 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgQzSF7dj10) (recent, but good)

Sens vs Flyers (http://youtube.com/watch?v=O6WO2MuoLYI&mode=related&search=) (modern classic)

[MosesGuthrie]

I don't know....I think baseball fights are pretty weak too....could be a tie. :)


although the potential of bats being used is always there. :lol

[LilMissSPURfect]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/chris_mannix/12/17/knicks.nuggets.brawl/index.html

Model of stupidity
Lengthy suspensions should follow senseless brawl
Posted: Sunday December 17, 2006 12:18AM; Updated: Sunday December 17, 2006 12:59AM
Print ThisE-mail ThisFree E-mail AlertsSave ThisMost PopularRSS Aggregators Facebook

Nate Robinson, left, and J.R. Smith are likely facing multi-game suspensions for their role in Saturday night's brawl.
Nate Robinson, left, and J.R. Smith are likely facing multi-game suspensions for their role in Saturday night's brawl.
AP

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Embarrassment. Truly an embarrassment.

In the past two years, the NBA has gone to great lengths to clean up the thug image that permeated the league in the aftermath of the ugly brawl in Detroit. To its credit, the league has enjoyed remarkable success following arguably the worst moment in its history. They have replaced the images of player-on-fan violence that were burned in our memories with positive ones. Even Ron Artest, the principal antagonist in that disaster, has seemingly been rehabilitated.

Now we have this. Fresh visuals. Just what David Stern was hoping for.

What a joke. I understand protecting your teammates; it's an unwritten code in all of sports that you defend your own. That's what Stephen Jackson thought he was doing. Look at how well that worked out for him. There is protecting and then there is being stupid. Saturday night was a model of stupidity.

Stern needs to come down with an iron fist on this one. For Mardy Collins (whose flagrant foul, while deserved, could have been a lot worse) gets five games. Nate Robinson, whose immaturity rivals that of most teenagers, gets 15. J.R. Smith, Nate's partner in the playpen, gets the same. Carmelo Anthony, the NBA's scoring leader and whose name will be associated with this night for the rest of his career, gets 30. Too much? Jermaine O'Neal got that and he hit a fan charging the floor. 'Melo just poured fuel on the fire. And if Isiah Thomas even insinuated any member of the Knicks should take matters into their own hands, well, Stern should come down on him too. Hey, it's just another shovel full of dirt on his grave anyways.

There is no middle ground here, no justifying these juvenile actions. You want to know why parents don't bring their kids to games? See how that brawl spilled into the first row? Maybe because parents think there is a danger of an errant fist winding up in their kids face. You want to make things better? Put the league on notice, let everyone know that no deed goes unpunished. Make the price of violence so heavy no one wants to pay it. Only then will you see real results.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/chris_mannix/12/17/knicks.nuggets.brawl/index.html

[LilMissSPURfect]

Sounds like 30 would be harsh for Melo but ....like they say..You act like an IDIOT you get treated like an IDIOT


no ALLSTAR here :fro

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Wow, that guy wants to throw the book at him. 30 games is way overboard. 15 for Melo, 10 for Nate, 5 apiece for Smith and Collins, and Isiah should be sentenced to coaching the Knicks for the rest of the year.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

After going to my regular hockey site, I watch NBA brawls and laugh hysterically. (except the Palace, because it went to the stands, and just got progressively worse...)

Weak brawl. The lowest form of weak. Weak to the nth power.

Here are some brawls.

Greatest Brawl...EVER! 1987 World Juniors, Canada vs Russia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ydbATVriqA)

Wow. Melo, watch and learn.




Avs vs Wings. nuff said (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pab978XyR3E) (wish it wasnt a production, just the game)

I've always loved that Red Wings-Avs one (for some reason, I remember seeing that live) and hadn't seen it in so long.

Thanks.

[boutons_]

"way overboard"

nope, these ballas haven't gotten the NBA msg of the last 2 years that the "NBA Cares" about NOT having dominantly urban/gangsta/punk image. The more penalty the better. Even if these specific mofo's don't have personal histories of brawling, the recent NBA does, with world-wide notoriety, and the NBA wants it to stop.

[Kori Ellis]

Wow, that guy wants to throw the book at him. 30 games is way overboard. 15 for Melo, 10 for Nate, 5 apiece for Smith and Collins, and Isiah should be sentenced to coaching the Knicks for the rest of the year.

ESPN's Chris Sheridan (who usually is a good guesser) predicts 8 of Melo, 6 for Nate, 3 for Smith, 2 for Collins, 1 for Jeffries and 3 for Isiah. And one for Nene and JJames for leaving the bench.

I'm leaning toward more for Collins because of this:


Collins' foul was so egregiously flagrant, he stands a better than fair chance of being hit with more than the standard one-game suspension for a flagrant category 2 foul. He also committed a similar foul the previous night in Indiana in the waning moments of another lopsided loss.

[PM5K]

If Melo gets anywhere near thirty games that would be a travesty, it should be twelve games max, probably between six and twelve...

[Kori Ellis]

I don't think it will be over 12 games because then it can go to arbitration.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

I don't think it will be over 12 games because then it can go to arbitration.

Absolutely.

[MosesGuthrie]

I would like to see Isiah get something for this if he in fact helped instigate this. Obviously there is no proof that he told Collins to take him out but given his history and the nature in which this happened.....I would be almost positive he did.

[nkdlunch]

how can u compare hockey fights w/basketball.

Hello? the NHL allows fights, NBA doesn't how can you compare both?

[Kermit]

15 for melo
10 nate
10 j.r.
6 collins
4 jefferies

stern is pissed.

[Spurminator]

how can u compare hockey fights w/basketball.

Political Forum.

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

screw the nba and stern

Melo gets 15, Jr and Nate 10

Jeffries 4

Collins - 6

and Isiah, nothing

stupid stern, what a douche...

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

Players union wont let this go

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

screw the nba and stern

Melo gets 15, Jr and Nate 10

Jeffries 4

Collins - 6

and Isiah, nothing

stupid stern, what a douche...

You're a homer. That's it.

BTW, Stern on a conference call on ESPN.

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

yeh, sure.

Look at past suspensions and tell me its fair.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Dang, I was close. Surprised they came down on Smith as hard as they did on Nate. Nate was the firestarter in that whole mess.

[Kermit]

yeh, sure.

Look at past suspensions and tell me its fair.

it's the first major incident after the palace. i'd say it's pretty fair.

[NuGGeTs-FaN]

ur a freakin idiot if u think Thomas should go unpunished

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

yeh, sure.

Look at past suspensions and tell me its fair.

http://img79.exs.cx/img79/3953/brawl.jpg

The NBA will over-punish to eliminate violence.

Stern just said as much.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

ur a freakin idiot if u think Thomas should go unpunished

I don't think Thomas should go unpunished. Give it some time since the video hit the media yesterday.

[ducks]

yeh, sure.

Look at past suspensions and tell me its fair.


it is not drolling last year got 5 games
this is so wrong
10 at the most not 15
look in the nba thread I posted the article about it

[VaSpursFan]

ur a freakin idiot if u think Thomas should go unpunished

stern just said no coaches will be punised. that's why there were fines to the teams, as a catch-all for all the stuff they couldn't prove.

[MosesGuthrie]

yeh, sure.

Look at past suspensions and tell me its fair.

Like you would think any suspension of a Nugget was fair.

[wildbill2u]

sportsmanship and running up the score is a different matter.

i do believe in sportsmanship, but there is nothing wrong in running up the score, it happens in most other sport. i see no reason why bball is any different.
College Football coaches are the worst offenders in running up the score because of the way the BSC bowls and national rankings are done. We all know certain teams do it as a regular part of their game.

Mac Brown of Texas is one of the coaches I respect for not deliberately running up the score on a beaten opponent. If he gets a big lead against an overmatched team, he'll keep putting in reserves until he's at the end of the bench.

Unfortunately, what he has at the end of the bench may be some super sophs and freshmen who are dying to get in a game and show what they can do. But at least he makes the gesture.

[MosesGuthrie]

Good point WildBill. Sadly with a lot of younger pro players (and fans for that matter) don't care about things like that. Its all about "I gots ta git mine" and they are too stupid to know that respect doesn't equal fear. Punks like Melo and Nate Robinson are prime examples.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

December 18, 2006
TV Sports
During a Brawl, Words of Disgust and Indifference
By RICHARD SANDOMIR

The brawl between the Knicks and the Denver Nuggets that led to the ejections of all 10 players on the court was easy to condemn. On MSG Network on Saturday night, the Knicks’ play-by-play announcer, Mike Breen, was so critical that he sounded pained by the players’ roles in the miniriot.

He suggested that Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas had “more than bad basketball to talk to his team about.”

“Talk about composure,” Breen said. “And poise.”

Walt Frazier, Breen’s partner, had as much time and as many openings to register outrage, but he offered none. To listen to Frazier’s words and tone, you’d think that nothing especially unusual had occurred; he even chuckled about the fines and suspensions that were certain to be imposed.

Breen did precisely what he had to do. He repeatedly scorned the Knicks’ Mardy Collins for the flagrant foul he committed on J. R. Smith, the play that started the melee. He voiced concern at how close the brawling had come to fans on a night when many youngsters were at Madison Square Garden. He fulminated about the combatants’ “horrible decision-making,” but he showed enough sense to say that maybe not all were guilty.

His words showed his dismay:

“This is turning into some kind of disaster.”

“Absolutely no excuse for Collins on a hard foul like that” and “a completely unnecessary and disgraceful foul.”

“Disgraceful for Carmelo Anthony to throw a punch like that and then go backing up.”

“Just a disgraceful showing by several individual players.”

“Just makes you sick to your stomach.”

“Another dismal evening at Madison Square Garden, and this one turned ugly not only from a basketball standpoint.”

“This night, another disaster at the Garden.”

In describing the action and providing opinion, Breen acted much as he did two years ago, when he was courtside for ESPN during the brawl between the Pacers and the Pistons at the Palace at Auburn Hills, Mich. The journalistic problem for ESPN that night was that its pregame and halftime crew, led by John Saunders, blamed the fans for the melee, not the players.

While Breen demonstrated his professionalism, Frazier, who survives at MSG because he is a Knicks hero, not a competent analyst, offered almost nothing. He was such a superfluous presence that he might have stayed home to study his thesaurus. He described Anthony’s punch as so loud you could (a) “hear it down here, folks” or (b) “throughout the arena.” He described how the roundhouse punch “cold-cocked” Collins.

Through several replays, Frazier offered no opinion stronger than that “the only beneficiary of this folly will be the charities that the money will go to,” referring to the fines to be levied by the National Basketball Association. He then laughed after saying that the ejection of all 10 players on the court would “send a signal for how severe the penalties will be for this.”

•

The only time he spoke out against a player was when he said that Collins had committed a flagrant foul the night before against Indiana (he failed to say that the Pacer involved was Maceo Baston). “Nothing we can do to defend Mardy Collins,” he said, with no passion in his voice. Maybe he was cogitating over how Mardy Collins rhymes with Lionel Hollins.

Frazier eventually blamed “all this bravado” for the fight and chuckled again when he said that punishment “in the pocket” would “teach them a lesson.” In the postgame program, Frazier leaned on his trademark childish rhyming, saying the Malice at the Palace, as the brawl in Auburn Hills, became known, was a lesson not learned by young players. Finally, but too late, he called the Garden incident a “disgrace.”

E-mail: [email protected]


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/sports/basketball/18sandomir.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

[veronicamae]

OK I wasn't home to discuss this when it happened on Saturday....

because I was IN New York City's ESPNZone watching the Cowboys game - while the Knicks game was on the other big screen right next to it. i saw it unfold live right there in the city it took place in, just down the street (crazy!). the bar went CRAZY as it was happening. i wasn't paying attn to the Knicks game, since the Cowboys were on, and suddenly everyone was going OOOOOOH! OHHHHHH! OH SHIT!!!!!!!! OHHHHH! and we were like what what?! and turned to see it happening.

CRAZY!

Melo is an idiot for resparking everything, and deserves the suspension he got. talk about doing everything you can to screw your team's season. And if Isiah spent more time trying to coach his team into winning instead of coaching the other team's players, maybe ... well, you know. :)

[ShoogarBear]

Why is it that MLB can have five times as many brawls as the NBA, yet every time there's an NBA fight sportswriters fall all over themselves pronouncing the death knell of the league, but in baseball it's just "intense competition".

:flipoff the US sports media.

[nkdlunch]

Why is it that MLB can have five times as many brawls as the NBA, yet every time there's an NBA fight sportswriters fall all over themselves pronouncing the death knell of the league, but in baseball it's just "intense competition".

:flipoff the US sports media.

2 words:

Ron Artest

[ShoogarBear]

2 words:

Ron ArtestMike Milbury (NHL Hockey player) did much worse in 1979. He went up into the stands and beat a guy with a shoe.

Yet after he retired he went on to be a coach and (?)GM.

Frank Francisco threw a chair into the stands in 2004.

If an NBA player did one of these, there would be a special act of Congress instituting the death penalty for all basketball players.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0610/gallery.memorable.brawls3/content.1.html

[Spurminator]

Why is it that MLB can have five times as many brawls as the NBA, yet every time there's an NBA fight sportswriters fall all over themselves pronouncing the death knell of the league, but in baseball it's just "intense competition".

Because most of them have their hair cut nicely, and their uniforms cover their tatoos.

[RonMexico]

My bad, maybe he should have stayed more than one year in college.

Melo shouldn't have gone in the brawl just to give a punch to a guy. If he thought that what Collins has done deserve a fight, he should have fight him as a man instead of giving him a cheap shot and running away just after.

Yeah, you're right - it was the running away that really sullied his rep in this fight...

[nkdlunch]

Mike Milbury (NHL Hockey player) did much worse in 1979. He went up into the stands and beat a guy with a shoe.

Yet after he retired he went on to be a coach and (?)GM.

Frank Francisco threw a chair into the stands in 2004.

If an NBA player did one of these, there would be a special act of Congress instituting the death penalty for all basketball players.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0610/gallery.memorable.brawls3/content.1.html

Artest changed the way the NBA looks at this and the way the world including media looks at NBA. thats all im saying. Artest is the Bin Laden of Basketball

[ChumpDumper]

yeh, sure.

Look at past suspensions and tell me its fair.It's fair.

[ShoogarBear]

Artest changed the way the NBA looks at this and the way the world including media looks at NBA. thats all im saying. Artest is the Bin Laden of BasketballSo why hasn't there been a Bin Laden of baseball?

The media has always looked at the NBA this way. Artest just gave them an excuse to pile on.

[ChumpDumper]

It's true, there is a quadruple standard when it comes to violence in US sport. It would be interesting to find the roots of these attitudes, OTOH it may be a bit disturbing.

[boutons_]

For basketball,

there is no major team sport where the fans are so close to players,

the players are half-naked, exposed,

the players have no face or head covering to hide their faces/emotions,

it's traditionally a non-contact, non-violent sport.

soccer and basketball are probably closer in these aspects, except soccer pitches are huge with a long distances between fans and players, and often a high, metal fence to keep the fans in the stands, and a cage around the players' benches to keep projectiles away.

There aren't double standards. Each sport is held to its own traditional standards for misconduct.

Hockey fans feel cheated if there's no fight, brawl, no blood spilled and skulls or faces split open.

Football fans love to see the other team hit up to/past concussion or injury.
Injury from intentionally hard contact is expected and accepted.

brawls in baseball, soccer, and basketball are rare, with punishment being immediate ejection.

[Kori Ellis]

So why hasn't there been a Bin Laden of baseball?

The media has always looked at the NBA this way. Artest just gave them an excuse to pile on.

I know you are insinuating it, so I might as well say it.

It's because NBA players are thought by many as "ghetto", "gangsta" and "thugs" and baseball players are not.

As to why they are thought of that way, it's because some people who watch/are associated with basketball group young, black, urban males and everything they do into gangsta/thug behavior.

They changed the dress code because they didn't like to see the "gangsta" clothing. They don't want them to listen to that "gangsta" rap music through their headphones, so iPods are banned. Etc.

(And yes, I know there are young, black baseball players too)

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

(And yes, I know there are young, black baseball players too)

But far, far fewer.

[Kori Ellis]

But far, far fewer.

That was my point. Baseball is about 9% black. Basketball is about 75-80% black.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

That was my point. Baseball is about 9% black. Basketball is about 75-80% black.

Yep - and it's an ever greater divide when you consider the amount of active players in the leagues.

In baseball, the unwritten rules are treated like a Bible and you're expected to follow them (remember when Ozzie Guillen pulled and lit into his pitcher for not throwing at the Rangers?).

The best example (and I think it was Shoog that gave it) is this: Put Frank Francisco in an NBA lineup and we're treating this story much differently.

[SequSpur]

Baseball has a weak ass leadership system. Who is going to suspend someone? Football is known for violence. So is hockey.

Basketball is supposed to be an athletic, finesse game that is fun to watch. Again, this is all about JR Smith getting a little out of control after being fouled hard. Big deal.

Again, wake me up, when a fellow Spur stops a player from posterizing it's franchise player Tim Duncan.

I can't wait.

[SequSpur]

Yep - and it's an ever greater divide when you consider the amount of active players in the leagues.

In baseball, the unwritten rules are treated like a Bible and you're expected to follow them (remember when Ozzie Guillen pulled and lit into his pitcher for not throwing at the Rangers?).

The best example (and I think it was Shoog that gave it) is this: Put Frank Francisco in an NBA lineup and we're treating this story much differently.

The unwritten rule in basketball is you don't play your starters in a blow out and you don't run a slam dunk contest in Madison Square Garden.

Seems like George Karl, JR Smith and Carmelo Anthony didn't take the history lesson.

[T-Pain]

the brawl has a nickname:

"The Grapple in the Apple"

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

The unwritten rule in basketball is you don't play your starters in a blow out and you don't run a slam dunk contest in Madison Square Garden.

Seems like George Karl, JR Smith and Carmelo Anthony didn't take the history lesson.

Maybe (and I can kind of see Karl's point considering I listened to them give up two of their bigger leads with small amounts of time remaining in the game this season), but you can't tell me the "rules" of baseball aren't treated with greater respect than the "rules" of basketball.

[RC's Boss]

Baseball has a weak ass leadership system. Who is going to suspend someone? Football is known for violence. So is hockey.

Basketball is supposed to be an athletic, finesse game that is fun to watch. Again, this is all about JR Smith getting a little out of control after being fouled hard. Big deal.

Again, wake me up, when a fellow Spur stops a player from posterizing it's franchise player Tim Duncan.

I can't wait.
I agree. He may be friends w/ Pop, but I always thought Karl was a bitch! I can read his mind now "you son of bitch! You fired my BFF, I'm going to get you!" Like the gay bitch he is. I'm no Thomas fan, but he did the same thing Barkley and all the others talk about... If a player keeps driving thru the lane on your home floor, put 'em on their asses! That same tactic is what allowed a less talented Heat team beat the Mavericks 4 straight games. They put Dirk on his ass a couple times and made them jump shooters.

[boutons_]

December 19, 2006

As Thomas Takes Heat, Karl Escapes Scrutiny

By HARVEY ARATON

Isiah Thomas is the human piñata in New York, and little that has happened in what is supposed to be his last stand of a season speaks for the defense of his tenure running the Knicks. But he wasn’t the only coach at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night putting a personal agenda ahead of his team and the welfare of the sport. He didn’t lay all the landmines by himself.

George Karl knew what he was doing when he kept his starters on the court into the last two minutes of the Nuggets’ blowout victory. He understood he was trampling on Thomas’s increasingly fragile sense of security, taunting the inner Bad Boy, for whom Karl has a contempt that was made so profanely obvious yesterday at a news conference in Denver.

And for what? That is the question the Nuggets’ owner, Stan Kroenke, should have been screaming at Karl yesterday after the league’s leading scorer and his most indispensable player, Carmelo Anthony, bore the brunt of Commissioner David Stern’s frustrations. A 15-game suspension for punching Mardy Collins, so Karl could make his juvenile little statement in memory of his friend Larry Brown? So he could kick the carcass that Thomas will be if more games do not end like last night’s spirited eight-man 97-96 overtime victory against Utah, on Stephon Marbury’s layup at the buzzer?

“I’ll swear on my children’s life that I never thought about running up the score,” Karl said yesterday. “I just wanted to win, get a big win on the road.”

Seventeen points? Twenty-three? What’s the difference to anyone not gullible enough to believe that nonsense? Karl has been a head coach in the N.B.A. for 19 years. He couldn’t read the danger? He had no idea what Thomas, whose Hall of Fame career has been pockmarked with altercations, is capable of when provoked?

We understand this is a professional sport, not youth soccer, but we’re not talking about considerations Karl owed Thomas or the Knicks. His obligation was to his organization and to his players, to weigh the infinitesimal odds of a Knicks rally against the potential consequences of the perception he created by not clearing his bench.

Coaches are paid to protect their players, given what they know about the combustibility of the young men who play a grueling contact sport, to evaluate the moment, risk versus reward.

“He put his players in a tough position,” Thomas said after denying that he ordered the hard foul on J. R. Smith by Collins, a rookie guard, or on anyone else.

Self-serving? No more so than Karl’s child-swearing piety. Thomas said his chat with Anthony preceding the brawl was paternal advice to “show some class.” Maybe. Maybe not, but without the kind of admission the former Temple coach John Chaney made in a similar situation a couple of years ago, or without a Knick to give Thomas up, who was going to prove his intent?

Not the lawyer in the commissioner’s chair. During Stern’s conference call to announce the suspensions of seven players and the $500,000 fines for each organization, he said there was no compelling evidence on which to suspend Thomas, who was back on the bench last night for his most gratifying victory of the season.

“Even in the N.B.A., there is presumption of innocence,” Stern said.

Many people in these parts already convicted Thomas because they want him fired — today, this moment — for failing to make salad out of the slop left behind by his predecessor, Scott Layden, the Jazz assistant coach who last night shook the hand of the Garden’s president, James L. Dolan, possibly in gratitude for his own dismissal three years ago.

For Karl, Thomas’s demise is another kind of moral imperative, what he deserves for the suffering inflicted on Brown, who collected a mere $28 million for tolerating Marbury & Company for one season. Karl and Brown are members in the North Carolina true-blue fraternity.

•

Stern suggested that Kroenke, the Nuggets’ owner, rein in his coach after a Denver reporter repeated some of the invective Karl spewed yesterday. Karl was obviously pained over the suspensions of Anthony and Smith, who got 10 games. But it was hardly out of character for Karl, a blowhard from way back, who once sneeringly described the hiring of Doc Rivers as head coach in Orlando, among other black players to comparable posts, as the “anointment of the young Afro-American coach.”

Karl apparently had the idea that only white journeymen like himself, 57 games under .500 in his first two jobs but still entitled to a third in Seattle, are entitled to practice the brain surgeon’s skills required to teach the high screen-and-roll.

Better Karl should learn to run onto the court and tackle his best player after he has set him up for the kind of trouble Anthony sadly found. Supposedly rehabilitated after some early behavioral missteps, Anthony was turned into an N.B.A. marketing linchpin, with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Now he’s the guy who sucker-punched Collins and backpedaled in retreat.

Stern had more punishment to mete out, more explaining to do to a national news media always eager to excoriate his players while pro football stars pretty much get a free pass for criminality and antisocial acting out. Stern must wonder how much longer he will be haunted by an idea someone in his office came up with many years ago, an N.B.A.-produced video that christened Thomas and the Pistons of the late 1980s as the Bad Boys.

“We’re like a hockey team; everybody wants to see us fight,” Dennis Rodman said in the video introduction, and isn’t it amazing how many of the league’s image issues as a breeding ground for thugs — from the Pistons to Rodman in Chicago to the Malice at the Palace two years ago to Thomas on Saturday night — have derived from Detroit?

It’s been a continuing story for almost two decades now, coinciding with George Karl’s anointment as an N.B.A. coach. You’d have thought that a coach as erudite as Karl would have known that those who don’t learn from pro basketball history are doomed to repeat it.

E-mail: [email protected]

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

http://www.truehoop.com

A Blow Out, a Blow Up, and Blowing the Whole Thing Out of Proportion

The more I think about that Saturday Night fight, the more I think "enough hand-wringing already." (I know, I know, this here very blog has played a decent part in that. Mea culpa and all that.) And that's not to say that what happened wasn't terrible. It was. If I pull on my holier-than-thou hat on I could probably deliver a stern lecture to just about every player who was on that court. Not impressive, guys. Not impressive at all, and something that--in a world of common sense and basic human decency--would simply never happen.

But that's true of a million things! An hour ago I was walking with my daughter, her best friend, and her best friend's dad, to pre-school. We were at a crosswalk, and a car headed in one direction stopped for us. So we did that thing you do... you sort of edge out into the crosswalk, looking to make eye contact with the driver headed the other way, in the hopes that they, too, will stop. I should point out that at this particular crosswalk, which is comprised of huge black and white stripes and a four-foot tall neon reflector built into the middle of the street, there is a huge sign that says "STATE LAW: YIELD TO PEDESTRIANS." In addition, my friend and I each had a brightly dressed three-year-old on our shoulders. And the speed limit is 25. So we were hard to miss.

And of course, some woman comes cruising along, sees us only at the very last second, initially jams on the gas to try to scoot by, and then with a big f-you glare and wild gesticulation jams on her brakes. Once she is stopped, she fixes eye contact and starts yelling. Recap: she almost broke the law and killed us (not really--we weren't going to get hit, but it would have been close), and we're getting the lecture. Something about we're crazy yadayadayada. I couldn't even really hear it. I think I yelled something profound like "it's a crosswalk!" My friend gave a big, loud, sarcastic "MERRRRRRRY CHRISTMAS" (which was pretty good under the circumstances--seasonal and poignant--especially considering you can't bring your invective A-game with three-year olds on your shoulders).

Here's my point: I could conjure up ten thousand lectures about auto safety, misplaced priorities, state laws, etc. If I were back in college, and had an assignment to write ten pages on it, I could. No sweat.

But there would be no point. It's just a low-level regrettable little incident. You cross the street enough times, someone's going to not notice you once in a while. Minus the yelling, I have even been the driver in that situation.

It's the kind of thing that happens. Like a fender bender, keys locked in the car, a broken glass, a sinus infection, an unexpected bill, or spilled milk... Sure, yes, people should be more careful, whatever. And people can even really get hurt from those kinds of things.

All those theories about that Knick-Nugget fight--there's probably some truth to all of them. But maybe that fight, like my street crossing incident, is one of those things that doesn't really benefit from a close examination of the particulars. Maybe going into all the nitty gritty is just an elaborate exercise of the fictional notion that there's much anyone could to eliminate occasional misfortune.

It's pretend, isn't it, that anyone's in a position to offer refined and effective fighting rules? (David Stern's thing yesterday is that fighting a little is bad, but re-starting a fight that has calmed down is really bad. Do we really know that?) It's pretend, perhaps, that the teams could have prevented it--other than perhaps wholly altering the corporate culture of your typical NBA team. (What were they supposed to do--reverse the violent upbringings of so many kids? Not sign feisty players--including multiple title winners like Larry Bird, Maurice Lucas, and Bill Laimbeer--who intimidate with their fists?) And it's pretend, I believe, that basketball can be played year after year without the occasional fight.

Do the math. That's 400 energetic young testosterone machines, many from tough, violent backgrounds. Counting pre-season and playoffs, there are more than 1,400 games in a season. With ten players on the court at all times, that's more than ten thousand hours of individuals pushing, shoving, and barking at each other. And it gets out of hand once a year? Less? (How does that compare to your health club/rec league/high school etc.?)

Maybe there's no lesson here at all, other than "that sucks."

(If there's anything lasting that comes out of this, I hope it will be this: let those Knicks and Nuggets who failed so terribly to turn the other cheek think long and hard before ever engaging in that athlete's ritual of lecturing those of us who don't brawl at work with pious post-game God talk. In religion, as in just about everything, actions speak louder.)

So why are we all so wound up about this fight, unlike baseball and hockey people? Because NBA players make the most money and are the most famous. Because they are not hidden away in pads or helmets. Because fans are right there on the court. And yes, because some white people think it's the L.A. riots all over again every time a black guy takes a swing.

There are probably a hundred other reasons. Dave Zirin has one: because David Stern and the media told us it was a crisis:

...we are deluged with articles about how, as a Yahoo Sports headline described it, this is really "a black eye" for the entire league. The Baltimore Sun's Childs Walker wrote that the brawl should spark a discussion "about the sociology of the NBA." MSNBC's Michael Ventre opined that "the terms 'NBA' and 'thuggery' have become inextricably linked in the minds of basketball fans the world over." The piece also calls the incident another example of "The NBA Vs. Idiots."

Young black men scuffling, even scuffling in a way that would make foxy boxing seem threatening, seem to be a catalyst for an astounding amount of public hand-wringing. Fights in the NBA happen with far less frequency than one would think. The previous one that drew a suspension occurred last season, when Keyon Dooling and Ray Allen scuffled with no punches even connecting.

Stern is responsible for this holier-than-thou atmosphere. It was Stern who last year issued the infamous dress code, banning ostentatious gold chains and medallions and mandating business casual attire off the court. It was Stern who instigated the "tough on whining" rules this season--if a player so much as sneezes in a referee's direction, he gets tagged with a technical foul. It was Stern who last year hired Karl Rove's public relations operative Matthew Dowd to give the league "red-state appeal."

This approach, in my mind, is rooted in generational and racial anxiety, and efforts to assuage that anxiety among the folks who can afford the pricey tickets at Madison Square Garden. When Stern feeds the myth that players somehow are out of control and undercivilized, it gives confidence to the apostles of fear--like New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick, who wrote, "NBAers are showing up to speak at schools and in airports and for TV interviews looking like recruitment officers for the Bloods and Crips."

While Mushnick and his ilk are shocked, shocked by the brawl at the Garden, they conveniently ignore the stories that place these young men in a very different light. With next to no media coverage, Anthony last week gave $1.5 million to start the Carmelo Anthony Youth Development Center in his home town of Baltimore. The center will offer after-school education and recreation programs to about 200 school-age children.

But today's Baltimore Sun has a piece titled "Anthony's Star Takes a Hit." Another report on the Sports Illustrated website contends "Melo's Image Irreparably Damaged." The brawl, in the eyes of these observers, far outweighs this altogether more significant act. And in Stern's world of paternalistic damage control, it surely does.


Here's the link to Zirin's full article.

http://www.edgeofsports.com/2006-12-18-216/index.html

[ShoogarBear]

JB, why don't you write an article about this crap and see if the E-N will run it?

[Kori Ellis]

JB, why don't you write an article about this crap and see if the E-N will run it?

And if they won't run it, give it to me and I'll run it on WOAI.com.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

Let me compose my thoughts and I'll get started.