A Step Backward for the League and Another Knicks Disaster

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Sometime soon, and most likely today, the NBA will hand out fines and suspensions stemming from Saturday night’s brawl at Madison Square Garden. As most sports fans know all too well by now, the melee began with a hard foul by Knick reserve Mardy Collins on Nugget swingman J.R. Smith in the waning moments of the game. Before it was over Smith and Knick guard Nate Robinson had tumbled into the seats fighting, things settled down for a second, then Nugget forward Carmelo Anthony sucker punched Collins, leading to another flurry as Knick forward Jared Jeffries clumsily chased Anthony around the floor. In the end, 10 players were ejected from the game.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for the Knicks, they find themselves at the center of another negative controversial situation.

The NBA announced yesterday that the suspensions wouldn’t be announced before today, but league precedent has been to disclose punishment before the team’s next game; both the Knicks and Nuggets are scheduled to play this evening. Given that this brawl echoed “the malice in the palace” — a November 2004 embarrassment that saw Indiana Pacer players Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson go into the stands to attack Detroit Pistons’ fans and that the league — and the NBA’s key allies, like sneaker companies, have gone to great lengths to promote a good guy image, the penalties from Saturday night are likely to be severe.

Let’s sort through the losers and highlight a couple of winners in this mess.

Denver. The Nuggets have been one of the minor surprises of the season. Despite losing forward Kenyon Martin to another knee injury, the Nuggets rode their uptempo offense to a solid 13–9 record, right behind Utah in the Northwest Division. With ‘Melo and Smith almost certainly gone until after the holidays — probably until after Martin Luther King Day — Denver is going to have to look hard for offense. Anthony and Smith combined for 48.3 points a game, or 44.5% of the Nugget offense. Denver isn’t a particularly good defensive team, they rank 20th in the league in Defensive Efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions), so expect them to struggle in a very tough conference.

Carmelo Anthony. This guy was poised to step up and stand with fellow draft class of 2003 members Dwyane Wade and LeBron James as the new public face of the NBA. However, his sucker punch was one of the most despicable acts in Saturday night’s litany of horror. ‘Melo has had off court trouble in the past with friends getting in trouble with the law, and trouble on the floor: His sophomore season was a big disappointment. However he seemed to be rebounding from that and he leads the league in scoring at 31.6 a game. Before Saturday, his stock had never been higher. Now it’s back in freefall.

The league. Basketball is a fast, physical game filled with contact. Tempers will flare, and at volatile times, fights will break out. For instance, last season, Ray Allen of Seattle and Kenyon Dooling of Orlando, by most accounts two of the league’s good guys, got into a fight that spilled into the stands. However, NBA commissioner David Stern probably wishes Saturday night’s ruckus had taken place late in a game at Arco Arena or the Rose Garden, not in prime time at the world most famous arena. The dress code, the age limit, the ubiquitous NBA Cares campaign (which goes so far to paint a smiling face on the league that the commercials refer to Jerome Williams as an “NBA legend”), are all part Stern’s effort to rehabilitate the league’s image as a bunch of overpaid thugs. Having footage of the fight playing on every news and sports Web site and cable channel all weekend is a big step backward.

Isiah Thomas. Nothing bad can happen to the Knicks without Isiah footing a lot of the blame. Although he has a point that the Nuggets starters shouldn’t have been on the floor after the Knicks pulled theirs in a 19-point game, Thomas shoulders the responsibility for the fact that it isn’t news that his team was getting blown out at home. Although he will be given until the end of the season to see if he can make improvements, this incident heightens the need for a change of chain of command within the team.

The Knicks. Losing Collins, Robinson, and Jeffries for any length of time won’t hurt the Knicks substantially — remember we’re talking about a 9–17 team — but it will prevent them from improving on defense since that is Jeffries specialty and the Knicks in general aren’t good enough to win consistently without every single player contributing at his best.

Yes, there winners from Saturday night too. In Utah, fans know that the only other team over .500 in their division is about to take a significant hit. It’s too early to start printing playoff tickets, but the Northwest Division is now the Jazz’s for the taking. Barring something drastic playoffs are likely to return to the Delta Center for the first time since 2003, the last time postseason NBA action took place at the Garden. The Jazz are winners in another way. They get to play what’s left of the Knick lineup tonight.

Chicago is the other winner from the brawl. With the Knicks sinking even faster that draft pick that they get this summer from the Eddy Curry deal is looking sweeter and sweeter. Does schadenfreude get bigger? With each passing week, visions of Greg Oden in Chicago red and black grow in the Windy City.

mjohnson@nysun.com


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