387 Days

The brawl that started it all

Do you know what today is? It's Jan. 7, 2008, which marks this as the 387-day anniversary of the Knicks-Nuggets brawl. Let's mark the occasion by printing my column of Dec. 26, 2006 from the North Adams Transcript:

Some of my friends have said they're embarrassed to be New York Knicks fans recently. Forget them. I'll always be proud to be a Knicks fan. What other team has such a ballyhooed history despite winning only two championship in its 60 years of existence? But there's no denying that the team is a complete embarrassment now. "Let them at least be incredibly bad so I can indulge my sports masochism."

Remember that? Probably not. It's what I wrote in the Aug. 18 edition of the Transcript, hoping to provide a definitive statement on the most moribund sports franchise of our present age.

But after the fracas between the Knicks and Denver Nuggets on Dec. 16, I have realized that there may be no way to produce a complete analysis of the pathetic status of the Knicks. Like U.S. presidents and the works of William Shakespeare, the team may require years, even decades of contemplation before reaching any conclusions.

I have now watched Saturday's fight several dozen times and cannot find a single redeeming aspect of the scandal for the Knicks. The team's attempt to have it out with the Nuggets provided just another view into its all-encompassing and disastrous incompetence. New York basketball fans now know this: the Knicks can't even fight well, much less play hoops well.

Any discussion of the New York-Denver melee requires a primer on previous NBA fights. The riot that took place when the Indiana Pacers visited the Detroit Pistons two years ago is most recent. That featured a rapid escalation of violence between a bunch of notorious troublemakers, most notably Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest. It also included plentiful participation by the crowd, from the fellow who threw a cup of beer on Artest to the guy who got KO'd by the Pacers' Jermaine O'Neal.

Saturday's fight offered nothing similar. New York's Nate Robinson and Denver's J.R. Smith crashed into the first few rows at one point, and Robinson put forth a good example of general insanity. But Smith and Robinson produced little that could compare to the antics of the Pacers and the Pistons two years ago.

The most infamous NBA fight, of course, took place in 1977 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets. That one featured a roundhouse from Los Angeles' Kermit Washington that decked Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. The punch knocked Tomjanovich unconscious and damaged his skull so badly that spinal fluid began leaking into his mouth.

Obviously, that incident was far more serious than anything that happened Saturday, and it should not be joked about. But, in comparison, it is worth noting that the only injury suffered from the Denver-New York brawl was reportedly a slight scratch to Knicks forward Jared Jeffries' cheek. That slight wound revealed just how pathetic and hollow all the macho posturing of the players was. For all their show of rage and indignation, the most damage they could do was one tiny, skin-deep abrasion. All that trash talk and public vitriol was merely for show and self-aggrandizement.

My favorite fight was the one that took place between the Knicks and the Miami Heat during the second round of the 1997 playoffs. Up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, New York was derailed when Miami forward P.J. Brown flipped and body slammed Knicks point guard Charlie Ward in the waning moments of game 5.

Brown was suspended for five games, but he was the only member of the Heat punished. New York had six players suspended, most of them for simply wandering off the bench to get a better look at the fight. Playing without many of their stars, the Knicks dropped the next two games and were eliminated.

It was certainly an ignominious moment in Knicks history, but it was also the product of a period when New York was an annual contender for the championship and shared a heated rivalry with Miami on the basis of four straight playoff matchups from 1997-2000 (After the first year, the Knicks won the next three series). That fight nine years ago was the product of some intense pride and animosity between two franchises.

The brawl two Saturdays ago was the result of some intense egotism.

"They wanted to embarrass us," Robinson said, explaining that he believed Denver was trying to run up the score. "It was a slap in the face to us as a team and a franchise and we weren't going to let that happen."

By escalating what might have been a small scuffle into a genuine fight with some flimsy punches and ardent chest-pounding, Robinson provided a slap of his own to the franchise's pride and integrity.

New York head coach Isiah Thomas was no less guilty. He admitted warning Denver's Carmelo Anthony, who embarrassed himself with a sucker punch and hasty retreat, not to go near the basket a minute before the fight broke out. Despite this indication that he ordered Mardy Collins to commit the hard foul that initiated the brouhaha, Thomas was ludicrously exonerated by the NBA.

"They were having their way with us pretty good," Thomas said. "I think J.R. Smith had just made one dunk where he reverses it and spins in the air. I thought that Mardy didn't want to have our home crowd see that again and he fouled him."

No, Isiah, what the crowd didn't want to see was a pathetic group of Knicks act in a way that only emphasized how pitiful they are. The crowd didn't want to see a team that, after the Los Angeles Clippers and the Cincinnati Bengals made the playoffs last season, is undoubtedly the worst professional sports franchise in the country.

Most of all, the crowd wants to see a Knicks squad that matters again. One that plays with heart and pride. And if that pride leads to some conflict, at least a team that can actually carry out a fight instead of producing meaningless sound and fury.