Even Breen, at the time, was on air going, "what is Thomas laughing about? This is nothing to laugh about." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/s...r=1&oref=slogin&ref=basketball&pagewanted=all
Wow that's just pathetic. Isiah will always be a horrible general manager and coach but now you can add jackass to that list. At least the "badboy" Pistons were good at basketball. This Knicks team is just an embarrassment to the NBA.
Karl was a dick for leaving his players in late, though you're bound to see that happen in just about every other blowout with neurotic coaches (watch the Bulls do it, especially). Doesn't matter. Violence isn't the answer. Isiah may not have specifically instructed his team to make a hard foul, and Anthony wasn't even fouled to start the melee. Doesn't matter. You can't have a head coach (the supposed last line of authority and accountability) talking like that to a player half his age. What else is his young team going to do besides carry out his boasts? If the "leader" is making these threats, then who can't see this coming?
SAS sniffed this one out. This was all about Karl defending the honor of his buddy Larry Brown. And Isaiah figured it out and would have none of it. Frankly, I hope they suspend both coaches for at least 20 games, and Melo, Nate Robinson, just to mention those 2 should be gone for 40 games minimum. The smallest suspension should be at least 10 games to anyone involved in that crap. Has anyone considered how this is going to effect the AI trade?
They should suspend Zeke Thomas for a long time. Your teams sucks and they're getting blown out so you order a hit? Nice going Zeke. What did George Karl do wrong? Scoring is illegal in the NBA now?
OK i just watched the brawl. IMHO That Collins guy: man what a bad foul, i understand that smith was angry so would i. He should get a big suspension Robinson: what a anoying guy, i agree with a poster(sorry forgot who) that said that he has ignited it all(well not all, but a lot). Anthony: i do not like such punches and then running away, that is how a coward would act. Najera: pretty classy that he didn't do anything, even when jeffries was trying to hit him, and he could have easily punched him.
rofls so was marbury on the court when they got into this brawl? if so more time for francis to shine... " good ridance to a bad team..who was expecting them to win anyways? this doesn't make their team worse, it makes them better by getting thomas fired and them hiring a new GM/coach that knows wth he's doing. im sad though, i had JR on my fantasy team...
a few years from now will anyone even remember Isiah was a great player, one suspects his plaque at the hall of fame will eventually have some sort of explanation next it Isiah Thomas, player (definitely nothing to do with Isiah Thomas the coach, gm or general non playing tool)
why the hell is this taking so damn long for punishments to be handed down? Nuggets - Wizards and Knicks - Jazz games are roughly 16 hours away - and yet still no ruling!! Surely something has to drop real soon. Anthony is on my fantasy team aswell...after all the injuries i've had (TMac, Murphy, Joe Johnson, Q-Rich) last thing i needed was this avoidable sucks. JR Smith was as well, but I immediately pissed him off once I saw news of the fight. Waste of space.
Whoa, you have one heck of an injury roster aussie rocket! Joe Johnson should be ok to start for next week though. I'd expect the NBA to announce the punishment in a couple of hours time, before the Utah-Nuggets game of course. Meanwhile just bench whatever Nuggets and Knicks you have (except for Marbury, Stevie, if you have him, curry and Crawford). Marcus Camby should be alright to start, and andre miller.
awww man i just remembered melo is on my fantasy team. shows you how much i pay attention to it, but still. lol, what are they going to suspend karl for, playing his players? even more lol. they're going to get like double the suspension of guys in the palace brawl? basically the worst brawl in north american sports history and now we're going to equate every fight that ever happens again to that? this fight has happened hundreds of times in nba history and thousands of times in baseball history and no one missed half a season for it. no one has ever even missed 10 games for it. now stern may go overboard and give more than 10, but anything approaching the pacers/pistons suspensions would have no logical basis.
so is this going to turn into knicks advantage? it's knicks' bench vs. denvor's starters. if they get suspended knicks still have their starters but all that left for denvor are their benches.
Denver would be losing more, but I would hardly call that an "advantage" for the Knicks. If players on both teams were smart, they wouldn't have gotten into this crap in the first place.
Don't know if this has been posted in here (too many pages to look through), but this a great piece on the disgrace that is the Knicks. Bad apples By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports December 16, 2006 Dan Wetzel Yahoo! Sports More on the brawl: Counterpunch to the Commish Beyond the sucker punches and sorry stunts at Madison Square Garden on Saturday came the most pathetic part of all for the NBA – Isiah Thomas whining about run-up scores and poor sportsmanship, like the once proud New York Knicks are nothing but a lowly college mid-major in need of mercy. Just when you thought Zeke couldn't embarrass this franchise any worse, just when you thought he couldn't let down this city any more, just when you thought building and coaching a dog team wasn't enough, there is this: a whiny coach making excuses for dirty fouls and poser players. Oh, there were all sorts of people at fault when the Knicks and Denver Nuggets decided Saturday night was all right for fighting, and David Stern will certainly hammer them the way he did Detroit and Indiana for their brawl in Auburn Hills. Carmelo Anthony is going to sit his 31.6-point scoring average for a long time. Isiah Thomas isn't the only one in the wrong here. But his postgame press conference performance was the most disappointing, if telling, of them all. He blamed Denver's perceived running up of the score, complete with a highlight reel dunk, as simply too much for his humble guys to handle. "Up 19 with a minute and a half to go, (Carmelo Anthony) and (Marcus) Camby really shouldn't be in the game," Thomas said. "We had surrendered. (Those) guys shouldn't even be in the game at that point." Thomas is correct about this much. The Nuggets were brutalizing the Knicks on their home court, 119-100 with 1:15 remaining, making a mockery of Thomas' salary rich club. And yes, stars Anthony and Camby were still in the game, maybe even because Denver coach George Karl wanted to hit up Thomas for firing Larry Brown, Karl's old University of North Carolina buddy. Whether or not Thomas told Mardy Collins to exact some revenge by tackling a breaking J.R. Smith around the neck is something Stern will decide. But Thomas may not have had to say anything. The boorish play might simply be Collins responding to his coach's unspoken outrage at the injustice of once again having his team get its ass kicked. It's certainly telling that Collins did nearly the same thing – a late flagrant foul – in Indiana's beat down of the Knicks on Friday. So that's back-to-back flagrant fouls in back-to-back blowout losses for New York. But those are Isiah's Knicks. This is on him. If he had an ounce of self-respect, he'd realize there is only one person to blame for this disaster and it isn't George Karl for his substitution pattern. Instead, he went with some sad, victim routine. "They were having their way with us," Thomas said. "I think J.R. Smith had just made one dunk when he reversed and spun in the air. And I think Mardy didn't want our home crowd to see that again. So he fouled him." Said Nate Robinson: "It's like a slap in the face, saying we're going to embarrass you like that." Boy, thank goodness the NBA has a coach and a player willing to stand up for sportsmanship like these two. We know a respectful sort such as Robinson would never, ever show up an opponent by, say, bounce-passing a ball off the backboard to himself so he could dunk it. And we know if, say, such a thing happened on his watch, say Nov. 29 in Cleveland, Thomas would never, ever leave Robinson in the game like it was completely acceptable. Of course not. Not these virtuous souls. "If we're up 20 points, we're not going to play Stephon (Marbury) and Eddy (Curry)," Robinson said. Of course not, because if the Knicks were up 20, Robinson would just honor his fallen opponent. Like when he botched that ESPY-campaign self-alley-oop and claimed humbly, "I won't be trying it again unless we're up by 20." The good news is the Knicks aren't getting up 20 on anyone anytime soon. If Robinson really wants this to end, if he wants the MSG boos silenced, then he should get his teammates to compete hard the first 46 minutes, not just foul hard in the final two. If Thomas wants to stop people from running up the score on him, then he should have built a better club. He shouldn't have wasted all that money on illogical signings, outrageous trades and heartless characters. No, Thomas and his guys weren't the only ones in the wrong Saturday. The Nuggets have their own issues. But when it was over, at least they weren't crying, at least they weren't punking. It's all gone in New York now – the pride, the respect, the dignity. This isn't just a bad team; this is a bad act. A once proud franchise and fan base brought to its knees as its pathetic coach makes excuses and whines for mercy. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...vLYF?slug=dw-knicks121606&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
Same here, I hope they playin and not suspended because if not I'm getting serioulsy gayed in fantasy with both of em on my team.
I enjoyed seeing Nate Robinson tackled and pounded into the seats by young Mr Smith. Nate is a thug, a punk, and a bully. Nice to see him get nailed. Did anybody else see Nate get thrown out of the pile, like he was in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It looked like one of his teamates and one of the Nuggets propelled him out of the pile and onto his butt. I think think Carmelo Anthony was in his roundhouse punch swing when his brain turned on, resulting in the silly looking slap. i give kudo's to Melo for getting control of himself, turning the punch into a slap, and then backing away. I am much more concerned about the Knicks comments after the game, the whole we were justified, we are proud of our actions, and the obvious implication that they will do it again. The suspensions should take these comments into acount and be substantially increased. I think David Stern has to be much tougher than the 5 to 10 games tthat I hear being discussed. The Knick players think that their actions were cool, and the fight has enhanced their reputations. Other players will pick up on this and do the same. David Stern should hit the fighters with at least a month, and of course, the same for the punck head coach of the Knicks.
What Thomas did was wrong. He should definitely be suspended for it. And what Karl did was wrong. There was motive to make Zeke look bad and support his buddy, Larry Brown by keeping the starters in and running it up. Karl is guilty of violating basketball etiquette and opponent respect. You would never see Sloan, Van Gundy, or Phil Jackson pull such nonsense. Karl was the first instigator in this mess and he should be tagged along with everybody else.
