Hey, would ANY of this have happened if Artest had decided he didn't need to take a flagrant foul in the final seconds of a game that his team had already won?
All that garbage that later occurred with chairs, bottles (plastic by the way per league rules) etc. was 100% instigated by two players (Artest and Jackson) who acted like thugs and bolted into the stands.
Plenty of great players in all sports have been hit with debris from the stands. We all saw Artest lay on the scorers table and just smile, hoping that Ben Wallace would come over to him......
I'm not a Pistons fan, nor a Pacers fan. I just saw two veteran, but obviously mentally unstable NBA players bolt into the stands. That's what started the whole mess.
If I'm sitting in those stands, and my buddy is having Artest and Jackson come 10 rows up and whup on me, I am not standing around and letting that happen.
Is this the guy who wanted "more" time off to promote his CD?
Ben Wallace didn't have to semi-choke, push Artest and even if that was OK as a built-up reaction, he could have just gone and sat down.
Lots of people played a role in this but you were not correct about "plastic bottles." I saw a bottle fly at the ref's head, he got a nasty welt from it, and that would not likely happen from a plastic bottle.
Sure, the thing that hit Artest was plastic, but not the thing that hit the referee.
Are people no longer responsible for their behavior? Some guy 300 feet from the incident is not responsible for his decision to dump food, beer and other things on players, personnel and security?
Are you really that deluded?