For the second time in two years, the NBA has spoken loud and clear after a multiplayer fight by handing down harsh suspensions. And what they’ve said is unmistakable: Players will be held accountable for their actions, but coaches, teams, and fans will not.

Yesterday, the league suspended seven players for their part in Saturday’s late-game brawl between the Knicks and the Denver Nuggets. Denver star Carmelo Anthony got the harshest sentence at 15 games, while Denver’s J.R. Smith and New York’s Nate Robinson got 10 apiece; New York’s Mardy Collins six; New York’s Jared Jeffries four, and New York’s Jerome James and Denver’s Nene one game apiece. Additionally, each organization was fined $500,000.

The list is more notable for who isn’t on it than who is — namely, Knicks’ coach Isiah Thomas. Thomas was seen uttering a veiled threat to Anthony moments before the fight broke out, clearly mouthing, “Hey, don’t go to the basket right now, it wouldn’t be a good idea.” on TV replays.

Adding to the circumstantial case against Thomas was the player whose flagrant foul began the event, reserve guard Collins, who had done the same thing the previous night at the end of a blowout loss to Indiana (note how the phrase “blowout loss” keeps cropping up).Plus, Thomas had been in other incidents involving threats to players, including one earlier this year with San Antonio’s Bruce Bowen when he yelled “break his feet” to the Knicks’ players.

Nuggets coach George Karl was incensed at the lack of a penalty against Thomas.

“It was directed by Isiah,” he said yesterday, calling the foul “premeditated” and Thomas a “jerk” and a “total —hole,” among other expletives.

“I think his actions after the game were despicable,” Karl added, referring to Thomas’s implication that the Nuggets were at fault for the foul by Collins because they left their starters in and were running up the score.

(Quick note: Karl also left his starters in at the end of a well-in-hand victory in Atlanta last Tuesday, so don’t buy the whole he-was-trying-to-avenge-Larry Brown angle that people are trying to sell. More likely, he was trying to help Anthony win the scoring title.)

What made Thomas’s exoneration even more odd was the preamble to the league’s announcement of the suspensions, the first item of which read, “Teams will be held accountable for the actions of their employees — management and players alike.”

But as with the melee at the Palace at Auburn Hills — when the Pistons organization received no penalty of note even though their fans acted like idiots, their security was nonexistent, and their team CEO basically said the next day that Ron Artest was asking for it — the players were held much more accountable than any other parties.

Instead, the commish put on his best macho face and went after the players but couldn’t say boo to a goose when it came time to discipline the people who indirectly pay his salary. The best he could muster was a $500,000 fine for both organizations. Way to scare ’em straight, cowboy. I’m sure Jim Dolan is banging his fist into a table right now, screaming out expletives, because he could have used that money to sign a third-string point guard to three 10-day contracts.

Thomas is right about one thing: Anthony shouldn’t have been in the game. With the Nuggets holding a 17-point lead with under two minutes to play (as of the last dead ball before the play, which was when Karl could have substituted), it didn’t make sense to risk injury to their most valuable player when the game was clearly in hand.

But the Nuggets suffered a far worse fate than anything Mardy Collins could have meted out — the 15-game ban to Anthony will dramatically affect the Nuggets’ playoff hopes. Anthony also is likely to miss out on what seemed a sure-fire All-Star berth, not to mention facing the irrevocable loss of any remaining street cred after his slap-andrun routine on Friday.

But the 15-game suspension seems ludicrous in light of previous suspensions. For instance, Orlando’s Keyon Dooling and Seattle’s Ray Allen had a tussle last year that spilled into the seats, and the result was a five-game suspension for Dooling and three games for Allen. In that light, Anthony’s jab at Collins — which was essentially the same thing Robinson had done to Smith, minus the crazy faces and wrestling — hardly seems to merit a 15-game sentence. Anthony has the right to appeal his suspension to an arbitrator, so he could get it reduced.

Denver will hurt nearly as bad from the 10-game suspension given to Smith — the Nuggets’ second-leading scorer — and it was a travesty. Smith was given the same suspension as Robinson, even though he was clearly responding to the actions of Robinson and Collins against him.

It was Collins who hog-tied Smith on his drive to the hoop to start the whole fracas. When Smith got in his face about it — without doing anything physical — it was Robinson who stepped up, putting up his fists in a boxing motion à la Jack Johnson, and then tagged Smith with a right hand. All this came while Smith was being held back by the Knicks’ David Lee. Only then did Smith break free and grapple with Robinson, ending up in the crowd, so it’s hard to imagine how the two ended up with the same penalty.

Meanwhile, the Knicks have to figure out how to cope without two key players for the next several games. Losing Collins will have no impact whatsoever, except that it robs Thomas of his favorite goon in garbage time. But the absences of Jeffries and Robinson will leave a dent.

In fact, New York suddenly looks a bit shorthanded in the backcourt and wings. Not only are Robinson and Jeffries suspended, but Quentin Richardson’s back problems are flaring up and Steve Francis is already on the shelf. Thus, Jamal Crawford and Stephon Marbury may have to play nearly the full 48 the next few games until Jeffries’s suspension ends, with Renaldo Balkman the only other player who is even semiplausible in the backcourt. Balkman or David Lee is likely to be pressed into service as the starting small forward until Jeffries returns.

With the Knicks already limping along at 9–17, this was about the last thing they needed. Unfortunately, Thomas’s (suspected) retribution for a perceived slight by the Nuggets will set New York back even further in its quest to eke out a playoff berth. That will have to serve as his punishment, apparently, because the league has shown absolutely no interest in policing anyone not wearing a uniform.

jhollinger@nysun.com