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I'll preface this by saying I'm a Pistons fan, but I'm going to say this with as little bias as I possibly can.
How things should have gone: Artest fouls Wallace harder than necessary for the lead the Pacers had and the amount of time left. Wallace shoves back, and everyone gets separated. Artest goes and lays down on the table like a jackass. Idiot fan throws beer on Artest. Idiot fan is escorted out of arena. The end.
You can't tell me that what Artest did was self-defense. When Yankee fans were throwing shit onto the field during the ALCS, did Ortiz go up into the crowd and start randomly punching out fans in pinstripes? No. The police came out, and the troublemakers were dealt with.
Artest went waaaaaaaaaaaay over the line last night. You get up, you point out the fan that threw the beer (he was wrong about who threw it anyway. He punched out the wrong guy), and let security and the Auburn Hills Police Department handle things.
That said, the fans that were throwing punches crossed the line, too. I can understand trying to hold him back to protect the fan who happened to be sitting close to the source of the beer, but you don't start punching somebody in the back of the head. You hold his arms back and let somebody with some authority take charge.
Jackson went too far. Like someone said, it would have been all right if he had just gone up to pull Artest out of the crowd, but when he starts throwing haymakers, of course it's going to escalate.
The fans dumping shit on the Pacers as they went back to their locker room was uncalled for, too. Yes, emotions were running high, but that's still a jackass thing to do.
The one Pacer-on-fan bit of violence that I feel is absolutely, totally acceptable is the fan that got punked out when he got onto the court. That was self-defense.
This was an ugly situation, and, yes, the Pistons started it, but the riot is Ron Artest's fault. So you got beer thrown on you. Big fucking deal. Maybe if you'd gone to your bench like a normal player, you wouldn't have pissed off that fan. Granted, the fan shouldn't have thrown his beer, but there is absolutely no fucking reason why you get up and enter the crowd.
I hope Artest and Jackson miss weeks of basketball for this. Wallace should miss a couple of games for starting the on-court fight. If the fan that threw the beer is a season-ticket holder, he shouldn't be anymore.
Anyway, that's my opinion on all this.
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