NBA Office handling of Celtics Incident versus Suns '07 Incident

[Donoghus]

First of all, I'm extremely glad that there were no suspensions issued to KG or Perkins stemming from Game 4.  I'm glad that we'll be able to be full-strength tonight going into a pivotal Game 5.

Since the news broke early evening yesterday regarding the fact that there would be no suspensions or fines issued for the Game 4 incident, I can't help but go back and think about the Phoenix/San Antonio series from last season and the subsequent fallout from the Horry/Nash incident.  I'm sure all of you can recall that Horry leveled Nash with a hard foul and things escalated into a situation that resulted in multiple suspensions being handed out.  Many believe that the actions of the NBA league office shifted the series heavily in San Antonio's favor which ultimately resulted in a San Antonio series win on their way to another NBA title. The perception from many, myself included, was that whoever won that series would win the championship. I was curious to what the reaction would be from Suns fans after the statement issued yesterday concerning Hawks/Celtics and the results weren't exactly surprising.  A lot of peeved people out in the desert right now.  To add insult to injury, they were eliminated last night.  Here's some Suns fans' thoughts on yesterday's ruling. Courtesy of realgm.

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=785051&start=48&sid=c1fc13a0e6df3d46690991c3e5562194

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=785293

Now the major question here is obviously "How is the Celtics incident different from the Suns incident?"  Perkins and Marvin Williams were clearly on the court and yet were not suspended.  If you recall, Amare Stoudemire was suspended for the same exact action.  Robert Horry was suspended for his knockdown of Nash while KG was not for neither the Pachulia elbow nor his interaction with a referee.  I think they're can be a few schools of thought inferred by the league's actions.

1) The NBA saw the fallout from last year's incident and the way many NBA fans and media types were slamming the NBA for the way they handled things and the perception that they "handed" San Antonio the series due to the nature of the suspensions.  The NBA didn't want more bad PR in this season's playoffs and thus took a different course of action this way around.

2) The NBA league office simply felt that the actions weren't egregious enough to warrant any suspensions.  Now, this could be true but if Stern was on record last year preaching about the "stepping on the court requires zero tolerance" argument then yesterday's ruling sorta flies in the face of that, doesn't it?  Was what Stoudemire did last year much worse than what Perkins or Williams did this year?  I don't really see it.

3) (And this one is for all the conspiracy theorists on this site)  The NBA wants and needs the Celtics to advance in the playoffs because it means high ratings and more money.  The possiblity of a Lakers/Celtics NBA Finals will put the NBA back on the map with casual sports fans who turned away from the NBA sometime in the '90s.  The NBA knew that suspending KG and Perk would severly hamper the potential for the Boston Celtics to continue in the playoffs and didn't want that to happen.

In no way am I endorsing the third line of thought but just thought I'd throw it out there.

Anyways, I was just curious to peoples' thoughts concerning the Phoenix/Boston comparison and am interested to see how people view the two incidents.

[Redz]

Good breakdown. I'd lean towards number #2.

2) The NBA league office simply felt that the actions weren't egregious enough to warrant any suspensions.  Now, this could be true but if Stern was on record last year preaching about the "stepping on the court requires zero tolerance" argument then yesterday's ruling sorta flies in the face of that, doesn't it?  Was what Stoudemire did last year much worse than what Perkins or Williams did this year?  I don't really see it.

[Roy Hobbs]

One distinction:  Amare and Diaw were probably about 15 feet away from their bench; they got almost into the fray, and had taken several steps towards the skirmish.  Perk, on the other hand, was already standing up, and only took two or three steps forward.  He never really seemed interested in joining the fight, but instead wanted to get the official's attention, or whatever he was doing.  (No idea about Marvin Williams.)

I do think the current handling departs from the "letter of the law" approach, but I'm not complaining.

[Donoghus]

One distinction:  Amare and Diaw were probably about 15 feet away from their bench; they got almost into the fray, and had taken several steps towards the skirmish.  Perk, on the other hand, was already standing up, and only took two or three steps forward.  He never really seemed interested in joining the fight, but instead wanted to get the official's attention, or whatever he was doing.  (No idea about Marvin Williams.)

I do think the current handling departs from the "letter of the law" approach, but I'm not complaining.

Good point.  I just seem to recall Stern speaking after last year's incident and basically saying "If you take one step on the court, there is going to be repercussions".  Implied that the policy was of zero-tolerance and would not be left up to interpretation.  This rendering (for Perkins & Williams) sure seems to fly in the face of that.  It just seems like the league right now is almost "creating the rules" as it goes which certainly looks bad from a public standpoint.  One could argue the same approach was taken by the league when they fined Pierce for the "menacing gesture".  Did they really know what was going on or did they panic and issue the fine without researching things such as the fact that Pierce has been making that hand gesture all season in intros?

[Who]

Well I said after the incident that I didn't think Perkins or Marvin would get suspended and that I didn't think it was anything like Phoenix last season.

Amare Stoudemire and Diaw jumped off the bench and sprinted into the action. They got into the outer edges of tussle before they were dragged back to the bench. They escalated the situation and threatened the situation.

Perkins took one step onto the court. He never looked to join the situation. He was never a threat to join the situation. He just stood still in that one spot while everything was resolved. Nobody needed to hold him back. He took one step from where he was standing and stoppped and waited for the refs to take care of it. He was never close to action and he was never a threat to join the action, he never escalated the problem. Ditto for Marvin.

That's the difference and it's a huge difference. That's why there was no suspensions. If it was like last season Stern would have suspended both and would have suspended them longer, that's what he does.

[Chris]

I think it was handled correctly.  Although some people in the national media want to argue differently, these were completely different incidents.

I didn't see the Marvin Williams footage, but with Perk, he definitely did not break the rule IMO.  I watched it over and over again (on the TNT feed, you could clearly see Perkins in the live shot...the pictures they showed later were actually worse angles), and it was 100% clear that Perkins was already standing up as the ball was still in play.  Then when KG pushed Zaza off of him with his elbow (at least thats what it looked like in real time), Perk took one step forward to yell (it looked like he was yelling about a foul or something), but as soon as Zaza came back at KG (which is when I would say that it escalated into an "incident") he stopped cold and stepped back. 

It was 100% clear that he was making an effort to obey the rules as soon as he realized what was happening.

Last year on the other hand, Amare and Diaw ran to try to involve themselves in the incident.  Personally, I believed that they were just going to help their teammate and break it up, however, that doesn't matter.  They still left their bench with the intention of being involved. 

Very different situations.

[Schupac]

I'm not sure exactly why... I'd definitely hope it is reason #2.

My thinking though is there is a slight variation, reason #4:  We are one year farther away from the "brawl" at the palance, and one year closer to common sense.

[Bankshot]

1) The NBA saw the fallout from last year's incident and the way many NBA fans and media types were slamming the NBA for the way they handled things and the perception that they "handed" San Antonio the series due to the nature of the suspensions.  The NBA didn't want more bad PR in this season's playoffs and thus took a different course of action this way around.

I'm going with this explanation as far as Perk and Williams are concerned.  It makes the most sense to me.  They had to realize about the Suns' situation that although it was the rules, that it was stupid to hand out those suspensions in a playoff game when there was no harm done and they did nothing but take one small step away from the bench and never really entered the fray.

They didn't want to make the same dumb mistake twice.  The rule should be left open to interpretation and I think that's what was done. 

Now I have no idea why KG and Pachulla(sp) weren't suspended, although I'm happy about it.