dirty

I have to talk about this... It's about the Suns and those low down, DIRTY Spurs. Over the weekend, Amare Stoudemire accused the Spurs of being a dirty team. A Spurs player, Bruce Bowen, intentionally kicked him in the shin while he was making a shot. Amare was not hurt, but he could have been and for another player to intentionally attempt to injure another seems plain dirty to me. So, that was in game 2. Amare made the statement about the Spurs being dirty after that game. Well in game 3 the other night, you would think that if you were accused of being a dirty player and team, you would make your best effort to prove that comment wrong, especially if you disagree with it the way the Spurs did. No so much. Bruce Bowen intentionally kneed Steve Nash in the groin. There is no doubt that it was intentional. It also seemed, during all of game 3, that the Spurs were fouling hard and being overly aggressive. Basically being the dirty bastards we know them to be. All they did was prove Amare right. But that was not the worst of it. The dirtiest thing was in game 4, when Robert Horry of the Spurs intentionally fouled Steve Nash by body checking him into the scorers' table. This led to Raja Bell coming up to Horry and confronting him about it. Horry then threw his forearm into Raja's neck and Raja reacted by pushing him back. Steve Nash got up and came up to confront Horry for what he did and by this time the refs and coaches were in the middle making sure to stop the "fight." I use the word fight loosely, because it was not a fight. It was one dude being an ass and intentionally trying to hurt people. Then others dudes standing up for their teammate and friend. Raja ended up getting technical foul for defending himself. Horry was ejected from the game. But the scariest part (other than Steve potentially getting hurt) was that Amare and Boris Diaw got up off the bench and started coming over to where Steve was down on the ground. The coaches stopped them from getting anywhere close to what was going on, but just by doing what they did, there would be consequences. And those came down yesterday. Horry was suspended for 2 games and Amare & Boris each suspended for 1 game. What in the crap is that!! Horry caused all this. Amare & Boris were just doing what any friend/teammate would have done. They didn't make the situation worse or throw any punches. Their actions had no effect on what happened in any way. But the NBA has this rule: 12-A-VII-c: During an altercation, all players not participating in the game must remain in the immediate vicinity of their bench. Violators will be suspended, without pay, for a minimum of one game and fined up to $35,000. The suspensions will commence prior to the start of their next game... Define altercation. Or let webster: a noisy heated angry dispute; also : noisy controversy. That if awfully vague, don't you think. Choosing the use the word "altercation" in your rule book means that the decision of what an "altercation" is and when this rule should apply is left up the the decision makers in the NBA. I know they reviewed the tape of what happened and decided the punishments based on that. But what do they consider an altercation? Intentionally kicking someone in the shin? Intentionally kneeing someone in the groin? Or in that same game Francisco Elson made a dunk and was hanging on the rim. James Jones of the Suns was standing underneath the rim and when Elson came down, he landed on top of James. Tim Duncan, who was on the bench at the time, apparently believed the two were in an "altercation" so he walked on the court and stood on the 3-point line for awhile, then went back to the bench. Was that not a violation of the rule? Why was he not suspended? They deemed Tim Duncan's actions "inconsequential because he didn't escalate things." He was not punished in any way. Tell me how did what Amare and Boris did "escalated things?" It did nothing! AUGH!!! I know that I am a Suns fan. I will support this team forever, but what happened and the punishments that resulted are unfair. Wrong and unfair. I am not the only one who feels this way:
In the end, wisdom suspended - Woody Paige - Denver Post
Suspended disbelief - Jack McCallum - SI.com
Suns-Spurs ruling shows double standard is at play - Ian Thomsen - SI.com
And many more. I could go on, but I won't. I have made my point. The Spurs are jerks and they play dirty. And the saddest part of this whole thing is... this is what the Spurs coach said about what happened on in game 4:
"It was just an end-of-game foul, and Steve fell down. I didn’t think it was such a big deal."
Not a big deal? Thank God the Suns won the game. The series is tied and game 5 is tonight. My boys will show up. They will play with the maturity and sportsmanship that they have always had. Being without Amare and Boris is going to be difficult. I might even determine the outcome of this series. And that is saddest part. The refs are determining who wins, instead of players. And that is just wrong, and dirty.