Brawl Crumbs

- It's starting to sound like Isiah might have called for Collins' hard foul on J.R. Smith. This seems possible because, A. Collins is kind of a well-mannered, quiet guy and B. He wasn't ready to fight after he did it.

- It pains me to admit it, but Nate Robinson is a punk. Tim Thomas might call him a fugazi. That was a fugazi move, Nate.

- Mike Breen made a great point on Sportscenter last night. He said that Nate's justification that the Nuggets were showing them up is coming from a guy that tried to bounce a dunk to himself a few weeks ago. Yup.

- It's hard to say anyone was in the right during this thing, but I don't think Jared Jeffries did anything out of the ordinary. I can't imagine myself letting Carmelo Anthony run away after he blind-sided Collins like that.

- The team should suspend Nate beyond whatever the league gives him. He needs to learn a lesson about composing himself like an adult if he's gonna play professional basketball.

- Can you suspend a coach?

Anyway, this was the lowest point of the Knicks' many struggles, not to mention a horrendous blowout loss. I'm ashamed of my favorite team, and hope that we can all put this incident behind us.

EDIT: Henry Abbott at TrueHoop has a very interesting response to the events.

And every now and again, after something like that, I'll hear some racist crack. Racists are always waiting for an opportunity to paint the NBA as a bunch of out-of-control black players. It kills me to have these highlights all over the TV, knowing racist idiots in sports bars somewhere are seeing them and feeling vindicated.

I'm totally with him on this. After the Pistons-Pacers brawl, I was nearly choked up listening to the things people had to say about the NBA as a whole. Last night, a friend of mine said, "This is only going to make my dad more racist". I hate things like this, that have to overshadow the everyday grace of the most entertaining and amazing group of athletes in the whole world.

EDIT2: If you've come here looking for video of the fight, you're not gonna find it. Turn on the TV.

EDIT3: Let me make one more thing clear. I've probably overreacted a bit because I'm not exactly an objective observer. I tend to think that fighting has its place in basketball (I've been calling for the Knicks to fight Bruce Bowen and Paul Pierce at various times), I just don't think this was the place. Also, when I call this a "black eye" for the Knicks and the NBA, I mean to say that the media is going to go back to work at calling the NBA a bunch of "thugs" and "hoodlums". I'm not justifying the media's response, I'm merely stating the facts. This kind of shit used to happen all the time (and is still commonplace in other sports), but it's blown out of proportion in today's NBA. This post at the Fanhouse has some solid points, from the über-intelligent Bethlehem Shoals and Marcel Mutoni. I do think that it's easier for them to be even-handed, because they're not chained to the Knicks paddywagon like I am. So go check that out.