Have ya seen Slap Shot? The scene where the Hansons go into the crowd after someone hit Jeff in the face with a keychain? That was nothing compared to what went down in The D last night.
Absolute mayhem. Here’s how it happened… After a Ben Wallace shot, Ron Artest gave him an unnecessary shove. Keep in mind, it was a 15-point game, and there were 45 seconds left… and Ron Artest is shoving people. Ben Wallace (probably over)reacts, and gives Ron Artest a hard shove to the face. Really, really hard. So the teams come together and do some more shoving. Ben Wallace is still pissed, and trying to get at Ron Artest, who is laying on the scorer’s table. He’s just laying there, looking at the ceiling. Ben is being restrained, but is still hellbent with anger. He throws a towel at Artest.
Now, everyone else is kind of standing there, maybe doing a little jawing, but mostly, everyone just wants to walk away… with the exception of Stephen Jackson. He’s looking to fight. It looks like things are going to calm down, and really, had it ended at this point, it might’ve made SportsCenter, but no big deal. No suspensions or anything like that. Perhaps a small fine or two. However… a fan in Detroit threw a cup or a bottle at Ron Artest, who was still just laying there on the scorer’s table, and it hit him in the face. And then, it was on like Donkey Kong.
Ron got up and went barrelling into the stands, looking for the dude who threw the object. At this point, all the players from both teams had looks on their faces like, “Uh-oh… Ron-Ron’s in the stands, we got to get him the fuck out of there.” Meanwhile, and this was my favorite scene of the night… there’s a guy in a black shirt taunting Ron for a second, until he figures out that Ron Ron is coming to kill him, and then his face turns to sheer horror. Ron’s being restrained, mostly by some fans in the area, and it looks like all the players are coming in to help diffuse the situation. With the exception, again, of Stephen Jackson.
The man is just going around looking for a fight. He finds the guy Ron went after (who, incidentally, wasn’t even the guy who threw the cup), and jacks him in the face repeatedly. This particular fan, I don’t believe did anything worse than taunting, and he gets pummelled by Stephen Jackson. Rasheed’s in there, Jermaine O’Neal’s in there, Ben Wallace is in there, all, I believe, on peacekeeping missions. Even Rick Mahorn was in the stands trying to break things up. Fred Jones was, too, but someone decided to start wailing on him. Another Pacer who I couldn’t identify (may have been Jones) got worked over by some guy in a gray shirt.
Particular credit goes to Rasheed Wallace, who tried to keep the peace in this thing from the beginning. It’s too bad that his efforts went for naught. Ron Artest looked to be walking off the floor, and this stubby little Pistons fan is on the court, coming at Artest with his fists up. Artest, rightfully, clocks him (and here’s a nice picture of it). The guy goes down, Artest keeps trying to wail on him, but doesn’t really land any other good shots. Some guy in a suit, a Pacers assistant, I believe, just dove on the guy and started swinging. Artest finally leaves. The same fan gets up, and is being restrained somewhat, and Jermaine O’Neal comes over and punches him in the mouth… real real hard. Guy goes down again, holding his jaw.
By this point, most of the Pacers had finally been convinced to leave the court, and Stephen Jackson is still trying to fight people. You may have seen players and/or coaches get hit with beverages and various other objects before, but the barrage of concessions that was rained down on Jermaine O’Neal as he left the court was absolutely remarkable. More food and drinks hit Jermaine O’Neal last night than exist in the entire country of Rwanda.
Reactions have varied, though pretty much everyone was shocked and disgusted… with the exception of Bill Laimbeer. You’ve never seen John Saunders of ESPN so upset. I don’t think he’s ever been that upset. Tim Legler was his usual pussy self, saying things like, “Fans can be really mean sometimes, and it’s not fair to the players, waaaah.” Bill Walton said it was a disgrace, embarrassing, and termed it a “riot.” Walton was clearly upset by the whole thing. Bill Laimbeer, doing radio for the Pistons, just completely shrugged it off. “This is not a pretty sight, but you know… it happens.”
So now, let’s assess the guilty parties, to whom you can assign varying levels of blame. I’ve given my arbitrary ratings.
1) Ron Artest, 41% of the blame. You can’t go into the stands. Period. I know it sucks to have people yelling mean things at you, and I know it sucks for people to be throwing things at you… but you can’t do it. Even if he’s morally right to go after the guy, and he may be, but for his own sake, for the sake of the league, for the sake of not inciting an absolute riot… you just cannot go into the stands. You’ve got to just swallow that one. Believe it or not, Ron Artest is not the first athlete to have something thrown at him by a hostile crowd. All that said, however, Ron did try his best to stay calm. Though he fell a bit short of the goal, he was trying to cool himself out until he got hit with whatever it was. Then he lost his shit. I feel bad for him. He tried, but it didn’t happen. He’ll get a major suspension, and given his track record… I wouldn’t rule out a year-long suspension.
2) Pistons fans, 38% of the blame. You can’t throw things. Period. That rule is every bit as absolute as “you can’t go into the stands,” but Artest gets more of the blame because he’s the professional and should know better. These people live in Detroit. Detroit is to violence what The Vatican is to prayer. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but in how many NBA cities are fans going to be willing to go toe-to-toe with Ron Artest? Something like this isn’t happening in Sacramento. But in Detroit, the Lions suck, the Tigers suck, the Red Wings are being locked out, and Pistons opponents are left as the only targets for rage. Arrests, hopefully, will be made.
3) Stephen Jackson. 12% of the blame. What an absolute moron. He wasn’t involved in the initial play, no one threw anything at him, and he was running around acting like he wanted to fight everyone in the building. He was the one standing there posing and yapping as everyone else tried to diffuse the original Artest/Wallace situation. Everyone else, it appeared, was willing to let it go. Not this guy. And when everyone else went into the stands to either protect their teammate or get him out of there, Stephen Jackson went in there looking to swing at people. If Jackson was capable of behaving like an adult, this situation probably never gets to look quite as bad as it did. He should get a major, double-digit game suspension.
4) Ben Wallace. 6% of the blame. Did Wallace overreact to the foul? Maybe. But if the whole thing had ended before Artest got hit with the object, Ben Wallace is just a guy who got really really pissed off at a cheap shot. As it turned out, though, Wallace’s overreaction led to an overreaction in the fans, and it snowballed. People in Detroit love Ben Wallace like few cities have ever loved any athlete. If Ben’s pissed, they’re pissed. But at the end of the day, Ben Wallace was reacting to a foul that was unnecessary and dangerous. He probably didn’t do anything to deserve a suspension, though he’ll get one because things escalated how they did. He will probably be suspended.
5) The guy who came on the court. 3% of the blame. If Jermaine O’Neal is going to be suspended, it shouldn’t be because he hit that guy. If you come onto the court, you’re fair game. If Jermaine O’Neal or Ron Artest had beaten him unconscious, I couldn’t have said it was wrong. He deserved everything he got.
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This could be the most in-depth recap of the situation you’ll find, so feel free to link to it from your website (use that # sign link right below), or e-mail it to someone else by clicking the little envelope down there…
