Originally posted by ESC:But it's sad to watch Steven A Smith, rip on all Detroit fans "for the few bad apples, fair or not you all have to take the blame", while trying to expunge his hometown Philly of the worse fans title.
Like I said above, they deserve it. The best way to 'punish' the idiots at that game today is to bring the whole city down with them. I suppose it's unfortunate, but due justice.
In no way am I defending the actions of the fans tonight because it was deplorable, and I've seen some of the idiots in person at games before. But the players are not free of blame. I just see a distinction between defending yourself and going into the stands to chase down fans. And they're suppose to be professionals beyond that. The fans should get their due, let the police handle it. There've unfortunately been an escalating level of fan violence - just look at all the incidents of baseball fans hurling coins or batteries - and any one of those incidents could've escalated into this situation if players had reacted similarly. Unfortunately the precedent was set here, and the media will jump on it extra hard because of the '84 riots or whatever carryover preconceptions.
At least Artest now will have that time off he wanted for his record promo and he gets some more free pub, two birds with one stone. And ESPN gets to hype up the Christmas day rematch.
