This is a terrific story put together by a reporter about the crazy “Malice in the Palace” brawl on November 19, 2004 in an NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons. I’ve read it twice already and the fashion of the article, retelling it from the point of view of the participants, onlookers, and people who just got caught in the crossfire really puts a human face onto the riot. I learned a few things too, that everyone thought Jermaine O’Neal would have killed that guy if he didn’t slip on the liquid as he was going in for his infamous “Jermaine O’Neal Sliding Punch of Doom”.
Other stuff that I learned from the article was that Ron didn’t actually punch that guy who he went into the stands for, the scared kid in the black shirt and glasses, and the guy Ron ended up punching on the court, AJ Shackleford, had been in trouble for trying to start fights in sports arenas and hoping for a payday. Its kind of funny that Mike Brown now coaches the Lakers along with the same assistant coaches that were there that day and Ron is one of the players. I wonder if they had a talk about this before the season started.
I wasn’t watching that particular game, but I remember a lot of analysis afterwards. I thought it was hilarious, a sort of shot in the arm for a season where my Lakers were breaking apart. As someone not in the middle of the melee, I enjoyed watching it and talking about it. I didn’t think it was going to be that bad for the NBA. I don’t know if it had much lasting impact other than more security and David Stern telling guys they had to wear suits when not playing. Did ratings drop after that? I don’t even know
I read this the other day and I agree it was very well done. It gives a lot of very interesting background on the circumstances of what happened and why some of it happened. If the game hadn’t been played so soon after the death of Ben Wallace’s brother, for example, none of this might’ve happened. It’s not going to change your opinion of a lot of the participants - I think Jermaine O’Neal was the only one who expressed real, non-self-justifying regret - but it does fill in the details. Certainly it confirms that the refs did a horrible job of handling the end of the game and the portion of the fight before things got out of control, and the Pacers should’ve gotten Artest off the scorer’s table. And not that it would have prevented the whole thing, but one of the fans who went onto the court (Haddad, the one who O’Neal almost decapitated) should never have been allowed into the game in the first place. The players were all in the wrong but Bird is probably right that more attention should have been paid to how abysmal a lot of the fans were.
I didn’t know that either. I was glad to he didn’t get a beatdown, but that must’ve been terrifying regardless.
I don’t think it did anything to ratings, but it was terrible for the league’s image, and it did set the Pacers back for years as a team. I forgot how good they were before this happened.
So many little things led to another. I thinks someone in the article mentioned that if the streak had been broken at any time, such as the proximity to Wallace’s brother’s death, someone getting Ron off the table, the cup not being thrown, Joey Crawford or Dick Bavetta working that night and tossing any unruly players, the whole thing could have been avoided. And 3 security guards? What were they thinking? I know they didn’t expect anything to happen, but in an arena of 22000+ people, you’d think they have more than 3 guards
I do like what Bird said too. Obviously the players are going to be the target since it fits a narrative (violent black men) better than shaming the fans, and they’re rich and visible, but like Larry Brown and Tim Donaghy said, most “fights” in the NBA last a few seconds. The cup thrower totally brought instigated this to a new level
The thing that strikes me is how Ron was totally out of it. He asks questions like “You think we’re gonna get in trouble?” and he seemed to honestly not know. Teammates and the guy Ron ran over, Boyle, said he was totally disconnected from reality at that point. Watching the video again, I noticed he just had a glazed look in his eye
They were championship contenders. Indiana missed their chance. I think Ron won Defensive Player of the Year the season before and they took the eventual champs to 6 games.
What really struck me was the talk about Jermaine O’Neil’s Sliding Punch of Doom. I thought that was the most hilarious moment of the whole thing, but I never thought he could have killed that guy. It was sobering to read that:
Still hilarious, especially the video of it, but that guy is definitely lucky. He had NO preparation for that at all, I think he was still looking at Ron and then this 6’10 guy comes out of nowhere and drops him like a sack of potatoes. I feel less bad for him after reading that he and AJ were rabblerousers
The league’s image definitely took a huge hit, I remember long long conversations between talking heads about race and the supposed “family” aspect of the NBA. If it weren’t for that, we’d probably not get those stupid commercials about how the NBA cares now. Now that I think about it, that was the year, and the year after, that there was a bit of a scandal over Kobe not winning the MVP. I, and lots of people I read, though Kobe got robbed. There was some talk amongst fans that the NBA wanted to get away from the image of the brawl and wanted a white face as the MVP, which is why they think Nash won it twice followed by Nowitzki. Plus, Kobe had his legal issues in Colorado at the same time as well. I wonder if that has something to do with it