Stop Foulin'

Knicks-Nuggets degenerates into a big brawl between the players though unlike in the Palace none of the fans got involved. I wasn't watching the game live and, logically, it's a bit hard to figure out. Why would Collins foul like that in that situation? And egregious as that was, Carmelo Anthony is a highly paid professional basketball player who really ought to know better than throwing that punch. I sympathize, I guess, with the impulse to stick up for your teammate, but nobody in the Nuggets' organization, Smith included, is going to benefit from that. Isaiah Thomas, in a rare moment of total clarity, correctly remarks "This isn't even a rivalry."

It'll be interesting to see how the suspensions play out . . . the West being as tight as it is, Denver can ill-afford to drop games because their starters were fighting with the Knicks. And why were those dudes on the floor at that point in the game in the first place?

I will say, though, that as with the Palace brawl I find some of the pious sportswriter reaction to this hard to take. Chris Mannix, for example, "You want to know why parents don't bring their kids to games? See how that brawl spilled into the first row? Maybe because parents think there is a danger of an errant fist winding up in their kids face." Please. The danger of NBA game attending-related injury is obviously incredibly small. Every Wizards game I attend features many parents with their kids. You would see more kids at the games if (a) the tickets were cheaper, or (b) the league scheduled more of those weekend afternoon games. It's bad to see something like this happen, but there's no call for everyone to start acting like naive little children who are shocked, shocked to see athletes fighting.