Nuggets Brawl

The Nuggets got in a brawl in the closing minutes of a blowout against the Knicks on Saturday. After the league's embarrassment from the Pistons-Pacers brawl a few years ago, the NBA is probably going to come down pretty hard with suspensions. But I don't think that any of the player's should be punished for this event. I think the coaches should.

First of all, Coach Karl shouldn't have had four of the five Nuggets starters in there with only a couple of minutes left and a huge lead. Karl was running up the score against the Knicks, which is pretty poor sportsmanship when the game is in the bag. Some have speculated that Karl left the starters in to show his contempt at how Thomas handled the firing of Larry Brown, a close friend of Karl.

Isiah, who was angry that the Nuggets were still playing four starters despite being up 19 with under 2 minutes left, told Melo and Camby that they should stay out of the paint, giving them a warning that a hard foul was coming. About a minute later, JR Smith is on a break to the basket, and Mardy Collins comes in with a hard foul.

Collins is essentially the Knick's Donald Brashear, although I would call him more of a stooge than an enforcer. He is a relatively unknown player, who now does Isiah's bidding. He also committed a similar foul the previous night in Indiana in the final minutes of another lopsided loss. If you know anything of Isiah's history with the Pacers or Larry Bird, you have to believe that foul was also ordered by Isiah.

The coaches put the players in the position to end up in a brawl, which of course occured. They should be the ones to face the suspensions.