this seems as good of a place to start as any ...
i find it hard to really fathom what happened friday night. it was a pretty disgusting display. and there is not a lot to say about it.

this is the way i saw it: ron artest is a defensive madman. and the rivalry between he and ben wallace is pretty well documented. so i did not see anything wrong with the hard foul, even with the score as it was. you always want your players to go out and give it everything they have, even when the game is pretty much over.

i did think that wallace over-reacted to the foul. but even the push to the throat didn't seem to bad. maybe it would have warrented a fine or something. but who the fuck really knows. what started to cross the line was wallace's continued aggression to artest even though he clearly didn't want anything to do with the situation.

i thought that the fans fed off of wallace's aggression. i think that when he threw the towel at artest, it was a sign to the fans that throwing things at artest was a reasonable action. i know that isn't a very intelligent approach to the situation, but after seeing what i saw, i am pretty sure that the fans involved aren't very intelligent anyway.

having said that, i am not sure i would have reacted any different. except one major thing. artest didn't know who threw what at him. he just filled with rage and went all out on anyone he could get his hands on. and that was his major mistake. i blame the security for allowing it all to start beyond that.

as far as the penalties go, i guess that they seem fair. i guess you have to suspend artest for the majority of the season. i think that jackson's penaty should have been comprable, though. and i think that o'neal's penalty should have been much lighter -- as all he did was punch a man that came onto the court. the fans need to stay off the court.

wallace should have received more games. 20 would have been a good place to start.

as for artest, i think that commissioner david stern just doesn't like him. and i think that (wrongly) had a lot to do with the penalty. but it doesn't seem totally unfair. and i guess that's all i have to say right now.

except that clearly the east has just opened up a lot more. it's starting to look like shaq and the heat have even greater chances than before at a run at the title.

- posted by jeames morgan @ 5:33 PM