The Palace

The fight: 5 years ago.

The maturity gap between Reggie Miller and many of his teammates was painfully evident in this game. Miller, sitting out with a broken hand, was dressed in a conservative olive-colored suit, white shirt and gold tie. While players and coaches from both teams tried to calm Wallace, he stood guard in front of Artest at the scorer's table. When Artest put on a radio headset to clown around on the air, Miller calmly took it off him. He held Artest by the wrist for a while, trying to keep him calm, and was holding on to Artest's right ankle while keeping an eye on the raging Wallace when the beer came flying out of the stands and hit Artest. Miller couldn't keep Artest from going into the stands, but he later helped escort Artest off the court along with former Pacers forward Chuck Person. He received a beer shower for his trouble. This essentially was the night Miller's final shot at a championship died. He came back from his injury to play 66 games and average 14.8 points at age 39, but Artest's season-long suspension and all the disruption of the season ruined the Pacers' once-promising title hopes.

Of course, a little perspective, please:

But what this makes me think of is of course Ron Artest. Most people remember Artest’s fight at the Palace in 2004 –NBA player jumps into stands to fight, the world’s over we should all kill ourselves. Okay. But what got lost in that shuffle and what continues to both amaze me and crack me up is that earlier in the season, Artest had walked into his team’s offices and asked for a month off to promote a cd he had made for some girl group friends of his. The gumption and stupidity to walk in and ask for such a thing – Ron, my cap will always be doffed. Never forget, people!