I'm not typically the type of person who believes that the slightest little injustice reeks of conspiracy. Often times, teams, players and or league officials are simply just too short sighted to do what is right. However, the NBA's suspension of the Celtics' Kevin Garnett for Game 2 between the C's and Heat is a blatant message from the league to Boston.
During Game 1, Paul Pierce went down with an injury right in front of the Miami bench. Garnett and Glen Davis went over to tend to their fallen teammate, something every single player in the NBA would do. While checking on Pierce, Garnett bumped into Miami's Quentin Richardson. As you can see from the clip, Richardson takes the opportunity to get in Garnett's face when all he's asking for is room to help Pierce.
The situation escalates and Garnett eventually delivers an elbow to Richardson's face. Garnett said after the game that he needs to use his head, but at the time all he cared about was helping Pierce. For his role in the melee, Garnett was ejected from the game. All other parties involved recieved just a technical foul and Richardson was the only other one punished with a $25,000 fine.
Watching this clip over and over, you can conclude a couple of things: Garnett intentionally elbowed Richardson, Richardson came back at Garnett after the C's big man asked Richardson to give Pierce some room, and Jermaine O'Neal shoved down Davis during the scrum. All these actions lead me to one conclusion, that you can't blame one team more than the other and therefore, can't levy different punishments. If you suspend on one side, you must suspend on the other.
Clearly, by handing down a harsher penalty on the side of the Celtics, the NBA is trying to send them a message. All year long, Boston has been a team that antagonizes officials. Despite handing down fines to coach Doc Rivers and players throughout the season, the league apparently could not pass up on this opportunity to send yet another message.
These situations arise in the NBA all the time, but the punishments are always roughly equivalent. If the primary instigator on one team is suspended, the primary insitgator on the other is as well. Sometimes all that happens are fines, and in this instance that probably would've been the appropriate penalty.
Still, I can understand how the NBA would want to suspend a player who intentionally elbowed another. What I can't understand is why they wouldn't suspend Richardson, who helped to accelerate the situation to that level by refusing to back away from an injured player. Also, why they're willing to ignore the fact that O'Neal shoved down Davis when O'Neal has a track record of getting involved in these situations (see the Artest Melee in Detroit).
It's really no surprise that this unjust decision comes down from a league that insists it doesn't have a problem with the officiating. There's plenty of evidence that Tim Donaghy was not the only crooked official working. While others may not be profiting by fixing games, there are definitely built-in biases. The Celtics have now paid for those biases by losing one of their key players for Game 2.
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