Carol: Yeah, what you said. I am no Bill Laimbeer fan. I can see why Swin Cash and Ruth Riley got as far away as they could.

Sorry about the game today. You know, that the Liberty won . . . Well, okay, not really. But it’s great to see the Mystics playing well again. They looked great beating Seattle. I is Alanna Beard fan.

Jay: Well, I am a fiction writer. Corrected.

Powell also twice punched a Polish player who was already on the ground after a hard foul. Nolan joined the fight then as well, dropping a basketball on the prone woman’s head. This time, she tackles Parker.

I also dislike watching the notorious elbow jabs of Lisa Leslie.

For those reasons, I’ve never taken children to see a Sparks or Shock game. The WNBA promots a family atmosphere and then permits atrocious behavior: Bill Laimbeer speaks abusively to the refs and his team. His disgust is palpable and I do not want children in my life to see such behavior.

The refs make mistakes but the players and coaches argue with too much vitriol.

I have been moved by Mahorn’s sincere regret. He did make a mistake but the bigger mistake was the Detroit coaching staff enabling and encouraging thuggish behavior for years.

I hope the suspensions are long and serious for everyone involved.

I definitely blame the officials – Parker and Ford had been getting more and more physical throughout the game, and they ignored it. It was completely ridiculous that they didn’t do anything when those two had to be separated, and the fight started right after that.

With Detroit’s highly physical style, there’s going to be the potential for something like this if the officials let things go. Laimbeer and Mahorn coach like they played, Ford plays like her dad, Pierson isn’t afraid of elbowing someone in the head, and Elaine Powell … well, do a Youtube search on Elaine Powell, and you’ll find her most famous moment.

It was an ugly night, and I suspect Mahorn’s going to be in more trouble than basketball people realize. The reaction to this isn’t going to be like it was when it was the Bad Boys in an NBA fight.

but in that game, like the one you watched by the sound of it, the reffing laid the foundation for the fight.

it was completely obvious something was goind to happen, because the atmosphere was charged from the very beginning, and the ref wasn’t clever or experienced enough to take charge and get it under control.

he let all the niggling go on and eventually it exploded into all out biff.

I would never call the NBA thugby. For starters it doesn’t make sense. Plus it’s not nearly as violent as rugby league. I mentioned those two sports (well leagues) because they’re the two sports I watch that sometimes have brawls. Rugby MUCH more often than the NBA.

I agree a hundred per cent that ice hockey is much more violent, which is why I never watch it.

I’m sure Mahorn is upset but, wow, he should not have done that. It looked terrible on TV and didn’t get any better with each successive replay.

I look forward to reading your post. Do give us the link when you’re done. Be good to get your perspective—and eyewitness account. I particularly want to know what you thought of the officiating.

It was sad and nasty. Especially as it had been an exciting (though poorly officiated) game up till then.

Rick Mahorn is distraught over this – he was genuinely trying to get people away from the fight. He’s the one who went into the crowd to try to stop Ron Artest during the Pistons-Pacers brawl.

“I was trying to protect – the whole game, the integrity of the game. The WNBA is very special to me because I have four daughters. I don’t even raise my hand to them, and I would never push a woman. This game, I love this game too much.”

But you’re right, he made a massive mistake – he should have done what Michael Cooper was doing, and only grabbed his own players.

Cooper was stunned after the game – he said that he was just glad that no one had gotten hurt, and I had to break it to him that he was mistaken. He hadn’t even seen Ford on the floor, or getting taken off on the wheelchair.

This wasn’t as ugly as the Pistons-Pacers brawl – I was in the middle of that one, too – but this was sad and nasty.

I’m sure I’ll make a long, long blog post about this in an hour or so, but right now I’m done writing and I want to go home.

And, yeah, Mahorn needs to go down for this. Not just a male coach pushing a female player. A HUGE male coach who’s almost as wide as he is tall, pushing a female player, many inches shorter than he and like a 100 kilos lighter.

But a male coach getting in on it and pushing a female player? What the hell? That IS outrageous.