You got my brief, but to the point take on these suspension last night -- I understand the rule. Rules are up for interpretation, clearly. Time to start teaching our kids to not stand up for teammates. This was a stupid decision.
What does the blogosphere have to say about the NBA's decisions?
Bright Side of the Sun calls out David Stern's hypocrisy ...
The Rising Suns titles this post - "Thuggery Wins, Fans Lose" with very little else to say as it's not needed.David Stern can say anything he wants about liking how the game is opening up and becoming more free. But he's proved here that he doesn't mean it.
It's a travesty that the Spurs continue to get away with what can only be considered thug basketball and no one in the upper echelon of the NBA cares.
The Suns can still win the game tomorrow. They'll have the crowd behind them and they'll be out to get revenge. But it's going to be a fight - literally. Don't think for a minute that these suspensions will tone things down. If anything, it's shown Greg Popovich and his band of thugs that they really CAN get away with whatever they want.
Pounding the Rock (quickly becoming a favorite) asked what ever happened to caring about the fans ... (read his whole post via the link. It's good)
YAYsports! supports the NBA ruling ...Whatever happened to "give the fans what they want?" Or "the customer is always right?"
The NBA, thanks to an iron-clad interpretation of a rule nobody has ever liked, has appeased... who? Who's happy about this? The Suns players, fans and coaches are understandably "disgusted." As far as I know the Spurs have made no official comment on the situation. They're not dumb enough to come out and say they agree with the decision and anything voiced to the contrary won't be believed anyway.
Like many others, I'm not ruling the Suns out tonight. Motivation is a powerful tool. Combine that with what will be an unsafe for children US Airways Center and I think the Suns still pull this off while giving David Stern, Stu Jackson and Robert Horry a big middle finger. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)It doesn’t matter if Stoudemire and Diaw weren’t coming to fight or getting ready to throw punches. If any of you have ever been in a fight situation, then you know that having extra hands standing by to support you fires things up just a little more.
All of a sudden three guys “got your back” and you can get a little more shovey, a little more pushy, a little more mouthy, and you’re that much closer to a fight breaking out.
It escalates things, and that’s what the “spirit of the law” is for. It’s supposed to prevent the fight from happening in the first place, not punish people for getting in a fight. It worked - those guys scurried back to the bench, and it stopped things from escalating further and getting out of hand.
The NBA did the right thing in this situation - argue all you want about how it makes the series worse (and it does), it’s not fair to the Suns because they didn’t start it (and they didn’t), and that the rule needs to be revisited (it might), but there’s no doubt that Amare and Boris running out there (and Amare was running aggressively) was going to push things to another level.
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