NEW YORK - The NBA has another ugly scene to recover from. This one involved its leading scorer and happened in its most famous arena.
Denver's Carmelo Anthony and the other nine players on the court at the time were ejected for fighting during a brawl between the Nuggets and Knicks, triggered in part by a New York team that felt it was being shown up on its home floor.
Multiple players, including Anthony, threw punches, and New York's Nate Robinson and Denver's J.R. Smith - fouled hard by Mardy Collins on the play that started the brawl - flew into the first row of the crowd while fighting during the NBA's scariest scene since Indiana players fought with Detroit fans in 2004.
According to the Knicks, the whole thing happened because the Nuggets still had their starters on the floor with 1:15 left and a 19-point lead. Denver won 123-100.
"They just wanted to embarrass us," Robinson said. "It was a slap in the face to us. As a team, as a franchise, we weren't going to let that happen. A clean, hard foul happened, and after that, it went downfrom there."
The foul wasn't clean at all. Collins grabbed Smith around the neck as he was going in for a breakaway layup. Anthony and Robinson quickly jumped in, and the melee went from one end of the court all the way to the other.
Anthony threw a punch at Collins, and now awaits what will surely be strong punishment from a league still trying to repair its image after the melee in Auburn Hills, Mich.
The players can expect a harsh penalty with the brawl happening at Madison Square Garden, right in the hometown of NBA headquarters.
"I feel bad for the league. I feel bad for the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "Very poor display of respecting basketball and respecting the game in the best place in the world to play basketball."
There had previously been some bad blood between Karl and Knicks coach Isiah Thomas over the handling of the Larry Brown firing. Karl and Brown are close friends.
But Karl wouldn't talk about why he had his starters on the floor late in a blowout.
Thomas said he told Anthony that he never should have been in the game at the time.
"I just said to him, `You know, you're up 20, you're up 19 with a minute and half to go, you and (Marcus) Camby really shouldn't be in the game right now,"' Thomas said. "We had surrendered. Those guys shouldn't even be in the game at that point in time."
-----------------
another NBA brawl, i haven't seen any footage yet but i don't think it would beat the one in 2004. Here come the really long suspensions.
