If David Stern wants a new challenge, he’s got it.

While Friday night’s brawl in Detroit wasn’t the lowest point in NBA history – my vote still goes to the 1998-99 lockout – it may have been the ugliest. Stern responded by bringing down the hammer last night.

The NBA Commissioner dealt out some of the harshest penalties the world of sports has ever seen, including banning Indiana’s Ron Artest for the rest of the season and suspending teammates Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal for 30 and 25 games, respectively. But Stern still faces the unenviable task of trying to prevent something like this from ever happening again, and he must now must focus his energies on the many guilty parties who don’t wear basketball uniforms.

While the Pacers players were wrong to run into the stands and pummel Pistons fans, the real key to this unfortunate incident isn’t what happened – it’s what didn’t. You’ll notice descriptions of Friday’s melee don’t mention phrases like “security quickly intervened” or “the referees immediately got control of the situation.” If the commish is serious about stopping the violence, he’ll have to look beyond the players.

Let’s start with the officials, who allowed far too much chippy play throughout the course of the game and then fell asleep at the wheel when the car was careening off the tracks. When the initial scrum between Artest and Detroit’s Ben Wallace started heating up, only one ref – the diminutive Tommy Nunez – made any effort to get in between the two sides and coax them back to their benches. None of the officials summoned security, which is their responsibility, until well after it was too late.

To put the referees’ failure in perspective, the league handed out a suspension last year to referee Michael Henderson for missing a measly shot-clock violation. I can only imagine the fate awaiting the crew of Ron Garretson, Tim Donaghy, and Nunez, but I doubt they’ll be working any playoff games.

Second, Stern needs to hit the Pistons with a substantial fine. Their security was an absolute joke. Particularly egregious was letting the Indiana players serve as target practice for projectile hurling fans as the team tried to leave the arena. The Palace folks didn’t make the slightest effort to secure the area, even though doing so wouldn’t exactly have been like storming Normandy – with just 45 seconds left, most of the arena had cleared out. One hopes a huge fine would make other teams think twice about scrimping on security arrangements.

Moreover, the Pistons’ callousness in the immediate aftermath of this incident was flabbergasting. Tom Wilson, the Pistons’ CEO and the one who did most of the talking, probably should have kept his mouth shut. Right after the game he told the Associated Press he did not expect any arrests to be made. There’s no truth to the rumor that he said this while wiping fresh sand off his head. Later, he also hinted that Artest was to blame for starting the fracas by lying on the scorer’s table in easy reach of beer-throwing fans – the classic “she was asking for it” defense.

Finally, there’s the guiltiest party of all: Detroit’s fans. This was way more than just the proverbial “one bad apple.” The Palace populace’s thuggery was despicable, and since hundreds joined in on the fun, it’s fair to blame the group rather than specific individuals. The police will, of course, prosecute only those they see on video, but the commish needs to put the onus on the Pistons to take it a step further.

The Pistons have to yank the season tickets of every fan who took part in the fracas. It might be hundreds of people, but it doesn’t matter. The Giants did a similar thing several years ago in the infamous snowball game against the Chargers at the Meadowlands, and now their fans know that they’re expected to behave themselves. Hopefully Detroit fans will get the same message.

Since the Detroit fans think their $8 watery beer is better used as a projectile than a drink, the NBA should also give an appropriate punishment – having Detroit ban alcohol sales at the Palace as soon as the game starts for the rest of the season. The effect of this is two-fold: It hits the Pistons in the pocketbook, and it also makes it unlikely that hoodlums will be nursing a full glass of beer for hurling in the fourth quarter, or that they’ll stagger out on the court to fight a player.

Finally, there’s the matter of the two teams’ rematch in Detroit on March 25. Obviously, security will be a major issue. The solution couldn’t be more obvious: no crowd.

The teams should play the game in an empty arena except for team personnel and working press. The fans can’t come and the Pistons can’t make any tainted profit from the frothing masses who otherwise would descend on the stadium for the rematch. Meanwhile, the Pacers can focus on basketball instead of martial arts. The only victims are the Pistons’ organization, which takes a financial hit, and the fans – a fair punishment.

Overall, it was a nasty incident and I hope to never see anything like it again. But for David Stern to make my wish come true, he needs to extend the penalties far beyond the players. The officials, the team presidents, and, most of all, the fans need to know they will face severe penalties for creating the kind of conditions that allowed Friday night’s fracas to occur. Otherwise we’ll see a recurrence far sooner than we’d like, regardless of how long Artest, O’Neal, and co. sit on the sidelines.