BasketBrawl: What Comes Next?

DEC 18, 2006 — -- You've undoubtedly got questions about Saturday night's fight at Madison Square Garden.

We've got the first batch of answers for what happens next to the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets after a brawl that resulted in five ejections for each team and, at least for the moment, diverts some attention away from the Nuggets' front-runner status in the Allen Iverson Sweepstakes.

How long will the league's leading scorer be suspended?

A punch -- whether or not it connects -- gets you an automatic one-game suspension.

The severity of Carmelo Anthony's penalty from there, and for all the main players in this fracas, is a case-by-case call by NBA commissioner David Stern and VP Stu Jackson. Whether punches land, where they land and who's responsible for escalation all factor in, as does leaving the bench to join in.

The footage you've seen puts at least five players in unquestioned trouble.

1. New York's Mardy Collins took J.R. Smith down with the initial hard, two-handed foul that can't be pardoned no matter how frustrated the Knicks were with what they perceived as Denver intentionally running up the score.

2. New York's Nate Robinson was the first to escalate the situation by wildly confronting Smith and other Nuggets.

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3. Smith went after Robinson and the ensuing tangle spilled into a fan section, not far from where Knicks chairman James Dolan sits.

4. Anthony became the other chief escalator by throwing a right hook at Collins ... a punch that came just when things appeared to be settling down.

5. New York's Jared Jeffries went so hard chasing after 'Melo in response to the punch that Jeffries fell down and still had to be restrained when he got up.

The best early estimates: A minimum of five games for Anthony and Robinson ... and possibly longer. Suspensions for Collins, Smith and Jeffries would appear to be in the range of 1-to-3 games.

Don't forget, though, that Stern has been exerting his authority more than ever since the infamous Detroit-Indiana brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Nov. 19, 2004. Keeping that in mind, it wouldn't be a shocker to see all of those estimates fall short.