NBA playoffs: more bash than flash

By By Stan Torgerson / guest columnist
May 19, 2004
I have seen barroom brawls that offered less hate, anger, bad mouthing and physical contact than the current NBA playoffs.
The way the playoffs are going there should be a supplemental point system for elbows to the head, pushing, body blocks and knocking to the floor. In addition to the three referees the NBA needs three fight judges on the sideline marking score cards for acts of abuse.
Who in the world ever came up with the long held theory that basketball was a non-contact sport?
And let's not forget the rational for awarding free throws. Free throws are supposedly a penalty for taking unfair advantage of an opposing player.
Unfair advantage? Did you happen to see the elbow thrown by Sacramento's Anthony Peeler at Minnesota's Kevin Garnett the other night?
It got Peeler tossed out of the game. In civilian life it could have gotten him six months for mugging.
Of course Peeler had a reason, or said he did. He claimed Garnett tried to hit him in the throat so he gave him an elbow that was overlooked the first time. Then Garnett stuck his elbow in Peeler's chest so Peeler gave him another one back when the official was looking and out he went.
And how did his teammates feel about losing a key player in the middle of a playoff game. If you say hacked off because Peeler lost his head you'd be wrong.
It wasn't the only such incident in this series.
The game before Sacramento's Brad Miller got one in the midsection from Minnesota guard Darrick Martin. Martin fell face down after clubbing Miller so Miller walked over the prostrate Martin and gave him a shot in the back. Both were tossed out.
As Miller left he gave the fans the finger and was later fined $10,000 by the league, but when you're making $6 or $8 million a year for playing a game, that's chump change.
Sam Cassell disagreed with an official's call the other night. Based on what I saw Cassell has the finest collection of four letter words this side of San Diego's Navy Pier.
It got him a mere technical, and if teammate Ervin Johnson hadn't kept him from assaulting the official, it would have earned him an early shower and a $10,000 fine. On the other hand, as we said before $10,000 is chump change to a multi-millionaire basketball player.
It's not as if I haven't seen this before. Years ago, Ole Miss was playing Kentucky and point guard Sean Tuohy started to bring the ball up court.
Everybody was running toward the other end with their back toward Tuohy and his Wildcat opponent, who was harassing him for the ball, when the Kentucky player gave Sean an elbow shot to the jaw that knocked the Rebel player out cold. I mean stretched out on the floor without even a twitch.
Everybody saw it but the officials. They called nothing. Said they hadn't seen it. I'm glad they didn't hear what I said on my broadcast. I'd have been back taking a shower too.
I genuinely feel sorry for the officials. Considering what the game has become they are grossly underpaid, whatever the amount.
It's like being a cop in a neighborhood where the residents have more guns than you do. There aren't any 7-foot, 300-pound referees. They are out-muscled every time they go on the floor by guys who could inflict serious physical damage on them.
The only thing that protects them out there is support from the league which has the power to suspend a player for long periods of time, if he actually attacked the guy calling the game. That's the only thing that gets a player's attention.
Basketball players are protected in only one place, and thank goodness they are. The rest of their body is vulnerable to any kind of physical abuse, from being grabbed by the arm and slammed to the floor when they're in the air going for a layup to being hit in the ribs, chest or head by that lethal weapon, the human elbow.
The game is getting away from its finesse finer points. The Minnesota-Sacramento game saw 45 fouls called, three technicals, one flagrant and one ejection. All this in 48 minutes. Is that what the fans pay to see?