The New York Knicks and Phoenix Suns are blaming each other for the brawl involving nearly every player and coach on both teams. The NBA is pointing fingers in both directions.
The league issued nine days' worth of suspensions and fined a record 21 players a near-record $160,500 the next day after Tuesday night's melee.The Suns reserved most of their ire for Knicks guard Greg Anthony, who came off the bench in street clothes and punched Phoenix's Kevin Johnson.
Anthony, sidelined with a sprained right ankle, was fined $20,500 and suspended without pay for the first five games after he is ready to return from the injury.
In turn, the Knicks claimed Johnson was most responsible for starting the incident, and coach Pat Riley also set aside some blame for the media.
Johnson was fined $15,000 and suspended for two games without pay. The Knicks' Doc Rivers, who chased Johnson across the floor after Johnson rammed into him, was fined $10,000 and suspended for two games without pay.
"It really sets us back," Riley said from practice at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where the Knicks play the Utah Jazz tonight. "It hurts us from the standpoint of not having Doc for a couple of games. It's a very unfair situation, and all of it instigated by Kevin Johnson.
"We made the mistake of retaliating, but there were two very provoking situations. But we have to deal with it. We do not condone at all what Greg Anthony did. That's not what this league's about, and he feels very bad about it today."
Danny Ainge, one of the Suns ejected from the game and then fined on Wednesday, said the Knicks are exaggerating Johnson's role in the brawl.
"Kevin made a hard foul on Doc Rivers. The official did not feel that it even warranted a foul, let alone a flagrant foul," Ainge said. "If that gives permission for Doc Rivers to run a guy down at the end of the court, then New York would get into a fight every game, because they foul like that all the time."
The Knicks got the biggest team fine, $50,000, while the Suns were fined $25,000 for failure to properly control their players.
Suns president Jerry Colangelo, at a news conference in Phoenix, said no one should have been ejected except Anthony. He said the Knicks' image for physical play was partly responsible.
"You're seeing a team build a particular image for itself ... and gloating over that image," he said. "And that potentially could be a problem. I think we suffered a little bit because of that last night."
The total amount of fines was only $2,000 short of the league record of $162,500 levied against 14 players and the Detroit Pistons and Philadelphia 76ers for an April 20, 1990 incident.
With the total of nine suspended games without pay this time - amounting to an additional $65,061 fine for Anthony, $45,124 for Johnson and $21,829 for Rivers - the league said this represents the heaviest fines in NBA history.
Charles Barkley, one of the league's most combative and controversial players, was one of five players not fined. The others were Dan Majerle and Oliver Miller of the Suns and Patrick Ewing and Tony Campbell of the Knicks.
Riley, whose suit pants were ripped in the fight, and Suns coach Paul Westphal tried to restore order and also got off without fines. Barkley tried to act as peacemaker, as well.
"I had hold of Doc Rivers, and then I had John Starks, and then I just dove on the pile," he said. "I knew Kevin was down there somehwere."
Johnson was fined for precipitating the incident by knocking down Rivers with a forearm. Rivers was suspended for retaliating and fighting with Johnson.
Injured Jerrod Mustaf of Phoenix was fined $10,500, while Ainge and Starks and Anthony Mason of the Knicks were fined $7,500 each.
Fourteen players were fined $500 each for leaving the bench area: Charles Smith, Rolando Blackman, Charles Oakley, Eric Anderson, Herb Williams, Hubert Davis and Bo Kimble of New York, and Cedric Ceballas, Tom Chambers, Frank Johnson, Tim Kempton, Negele Knight, Mark West and Richard Dumas of Phoenix.
The Knicks led the league last season with 12 flagrant fouls, when the league set a record with 155. They are second this season with 13, one behind Dallas, with Oakley the league leader with six.
The Knicks' reputation as a physical team was enhanced last season by their rugged play against Chicago in their Eastern Conference semifinal, won by the Bulls in seven games.
"It's been a real unfair perception," Riley said. "We aren't the only team in the league that's committed a flagrant foul. It's just very fashionable now to jump on the Knicks."
The previous most controversial incident involving the Knicks this season occurred Feb. 28, when Starks was fined $5,000 for a flagrant foul against Kenny Anderson of the New Jersey Nets. Anderson suffered a broken left wrist and will be out the rest of the season.
The Knicks coach said the media had a role in the brawl by painting New York as rough and the Suns as soft, focusing on their poor record against the Eastern Conferene.
"The whole thing was perpetuated by a week-long barrage of media coverage on the Phoenix Suns, about how soft they were, the fact that an Eastern Conference team had beat them in five out of six games, that they weren't physical, and it was almost as though they had to prove their manhood," Riley said. "They decided it was going to be against us."