Pacers show signs of finally recovering from 'The Brawl'

Incident, Stern’s decision 5 years ago led to fall, then Granger brought optimism

The Indiana Pacers have enjoyed a five-game winning streak during the past two weeks. Not so coincidentally, it was their hottest streak since the 2004-05 season, a campaign wrecked by one horrible night in Detroit.

Five years ago today, in the final minute of a blowout statement victory over the defending champion Pistons, former Pacer Ron Artest fouled Ben Wallace, who then shoved Artest. Rather than retaliate, Artest retreated to the scorer’s table — until Pistons fan John Green hit Artest with a beer cup.

What followed shook the NBA, destroyed the Pacers’ realistic championship hopes and contributed mightily to the revamped roster you see today.

In the chaos that ensued on national television, Artest launched himself into the stands and exchanged punches with fans. Stephen Jackson followed him and also came to blows. Jermaine O’Neal punched a fan who ran onto the court. Angry patrons threw trash and insults at the Pacers as they left the arena.

“That was the beginning of the end of things for the organization,” former Indiana Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh said. “It set things in motion.”

Questions remain

Five years later, many questions remain.

Did NBA commissioner David Stern overreact?

Within 48 hours, Stern handed down the harshest penalties in league history.

Stern suspended Artest for the rest of the season, Jackson for 30 games and O’Neal for 25 games. Other brawl participants received lesser penalties, but the damage was done. The Pacers’ three leading scorers were gone, along with their title hopes. The fallout lasted much longer. The Pacers have missed the playoffs the past three seasons, attendance dropped from almost 17,000 fans in 2004-05 to 12,221 in 2007-08, and Jeff Foster is the only player remaining from that night.

Stern declined multiple interview requests for this story.

Artest also declined an interview request, but he said then he should have been suspended for 10 games.

Others, including O’Neal, also think it was too much, too soon.

“His decision was his decision, but I wish he would have given it a week or so to evaluate all the camera angles and everything,” said O’Neal, whose suspension was reduced by an arbitrator to 15 games.

“You have to set a precedent on something like that to make sure that never happens again. Somebody had to be held accountable on it, but I wish he would have taken like a week longer.”

Did media coverage influence Stern’s decision?

The brawl created an immediate media firestorm. ESPN replayed footage for days. Radio and TV talk show hosts and newspaper columnists called it the worst episode in American sports history.

Not so, said former Pacer Mel Daniels. In an interview months after the brawl, he told The Star similar fights happened frequently in the ABA. The Star described one during a Dec. 23, 1970, game at Pepsi Coliseum as a “riot” in which “players hit players, players hit fans, players hit policemen, fans hit players, policemen hit players.”

ABA commissioner Jack Dolph reacted swiftly, too. The next day, he said, “I certainly don’t condone this type of behavior.”

Daniels said only perception has changed.

“Everything (now) is dramatized,” he said. “Over-dramatized.”

Added O’Neal: “It was a big media blitz and (Stern) felt like he had to make something happen. We were waiting on the hammer to be slammed down on us.”

USA Today media critic Michael Hiestand said the 24-hour coverage put pressure on Stern to react quickly.

“I think it’s fair to say in any business that any kind of potentially embarrassing episode that becomes widely known, there’s a good chance there will be a stronger reaction to it,” Hiestand said. “If you have a thousand people asking Stern what he’s going to do, it creates a different environment than something a lot of people don’t know about. There’s no pressure to get an instant reaction.”

Why was Artest still in the game?

The Pacers were ahead by 15 with 45.9 seconds left when Artest fouled Wallace.

Former Pacers coach Rick Carlisle chose his words carefully.

“We didn’t break the game open till late, so both teams still had their main guys in at that point,” said Carlisle, who is now coaching the Dallas Mavericks.

Would the Pacers have won their first NBA championship?

“No question,” Jackson said. “I say that every time anybody brings it up. I think we had the best team in the league that year. I think we were playing like it up to that point, but it was a crazy incident.”

Added O’Neal: “That was a team that was high octane, high intensity. We had a volatile personality. That year we were set and we knew we were better than Detroit. We knew we were better than anybody in the East. The only team we felt like could contend against us was the Lakers out West.”

Does anyone regret the episode?

“Nah, I have no regrets,” Wallace recently told Detroit reporters. “If it happened again, I can’t say I wouldn’t react the same way. I hate the fact that it spilled into the stands. The fans weren’t a part of what happened on the court.”

Wallace said a previous issue with Artest prompted his reaction to Artest’s foul.

Artest, depending on the day, has expressed remorse while staying true to his upbringing.

Green, forever banned from Pistons home games and convicted of misdemeanor assault for throwing the cup, also declined an interview request. His attorney, Shawn Patrick Smith, said Green “has some major regrets,” and the incident affected his personal and professional life.

“It was sad all the way around for him,” Smith said.

Jackson said he has no regrets. Going into the stands to defend Artest showed how “close we were by everybody putting their careers on the line for each other,” he said.

Lemons to lemonade

Artest and Green recently made nice.

Artest recently called Green after tracking him down through Twitter.

“It’ll be something for people to understand when you fight with one another, you can always become friends, you don’t have to hold a grudge for the remainder of your life,” Artest told KHTK-AM radio in Sacramento, Calif., during the summer. “. . . It was a great conversation. All we were talking about was ways to reach out to inner-city kids and even suburban kids.”

Smith said Artest’s phone call was like a “cloud lifted off” Green’s shoulders.

The Pacers found their next face of the franchise, Danny Granger.

The Pacers’ core was created from the destruction in Detroit.

The Pacers, who finished 61-21 and drafted 29th the previous year, fell to 44-38 after the brawl but moved up to 17th in the June 2005 draft.

Granger, projected to go as high as No. 7 overall, was there for the taking.

Analysts described his selection as the “steal of the draft” long before he blossomed into an All-Star.

Subsequent draft picks in the mid-teens allowed them to obtain Roy Hibbert, Brandon Rush and Tyler Hansbrough.

“We obviously went through some tough times here,” team president Larry Bird said. "I felt like we gave up a championship-caliber team to have to rebuild this thing.

“Through that, we came out and got Danny and Roy and some of those other guys, and we’re trying to build it back up. . . . It’s definitely getting back on track. . . . It’s a very slow process, but it seems like it works. We’ve got it in our minds that in a couple of years we’re going to be pretty damn good.”