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Masterplan
Posts: 21571
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Joined: 12/9/2002
Member: #362
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somebody don't agree with most people on the board:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/sports/basketball/18sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
During a Brawl, Words of Disgust and Indifference
Andrew Gombert for The New York Times
Knicks’ play-by-play announcer Mike Breen took to taks the players involved in Saturday night's miniriot.
He suggested that Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas had “more than bad basketball to talk to his team about.”
“Talk about composure,” Breen said. “And poise.”
Walt Frazier, Breen’s partner, had as much time and as many openings to register outrage, but he offered none. To listen to Frazier’s words and tone, you’d think that nothing especially unusual had occurred; he even chuckled about the fines and suspensions that were certain to be imposed.
Breen did precisely what he had to do. He repeatedly scorned the Knicks’ Mardy Collins for the flagrant foul he committed on J. R. Smith, the play that started the melee. He voiced concern at how close the brawling had come to fans on a night when many youngsters were at Madison Square Garden. He fulminated about the combatants’ “horrible decision-making,” but he showed enough sense to say that maybe not all were guilty.
His words showed his dismay:
“This is turning into some kind of disaster.”
“Absolutely no excuse for Collins on a hard foul like that” and “a completely unnecessary and disgraceful foul.”
“Disgraceful for Carmelo Anthony to throw a punch like that and then go backing up.”
“Just a disgraceful showing by several individual players.”
“Just makes you sick to your stomach.”
“Another dismal evening at Madison Square Garden, and this one turned ugly not only from a basketball standpoint.”
“This night, another disaster at the Garden.”
In describing the action and providing opinion, Breen acted much as he did two years ago, when he was courtside for ESPN during the brawl between the Pacers and the Pistons at the Palace at Auburn Hills, Mich. The journalistic problem for ESPN that night was that its pregame and halftime crew, led by John Saunders, blamed the fans for the melee, not the players.
While Breen demonstrated his professionalism, Frazier, who survives at MSG because he is a Knicks hero, not a competent analyst, offered almost nothing. He was such a superfluous presence that he might have stayed home to study his thesaurus. He described Anthony’s punch as so loud you could (a) “hear it down here, folks” or (b) “throughout the arena.” He described how the roundhouse punch “cold-cocked” Collins.
Through several replays, Frazier offered no opinion stronger than that “the only beneficiary of this folly will be the charities that the money will go to,” referring to the fines to be levied by the National Basketball Association. He then laughed after saying that the ejection of all 10 players on the court would “send a signal for how severe the penalties will be for this.”
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The only time he spoke out against a player was when he said that Collins had committed a flagrant foul the night before against Indiana (he failed to say that the Pacer involved was Maceo Baston). “Nothing we can do to defend Mardy Collins,” he said, with no passion in his voice. Maybe he was cogitating over how Mardy Collins rhymes with Lionel Hollins.
Frazier eventually blamed “all this bravado” for the fight and chuckled again when he said that punishment “in the pocket” would “teach them a lesson.” In the postgame program, Frazier leaned on his trademark childish rhyming, saying the Malice at the Palace, as the brawl in Auburn Hills, became known, was a lesson not learned by young players. Finally, but too late, he called the Garden incident a “disgrace.”
E-mail: sportsbiz@nytimes.com
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12/19/2006 12:15 AM
