this will be an absolute travesty if horry's cheap shot ends up benefiting the suns.
the rule is the rule... leave the bench, automatic ejection. we've seen it before... the knicks had a 3-2 series lead heading back to new york before that punk bitch pj brown power bombed charlie "i hate jews" ward into the first row... patrick ewing takes 2 steps onto the court, he (and half the team) gets suspended for game 6, a few more players are suspended for game 7, the knicks lose.
so here cheap shot bob hip checks nash into the scorer's table, amare and boris diaw leave the bench area by about 5 feet, never get involved in the right, and i'll be stunned if they're not suspended for game 5.
i understand that the rule is the rule, and everyone knows the rule... the same rule exists in high school for pete's sake... but one would think that using the same guidelines to enforce a silly rule in the regular season and in the post-season is a bit shortsided. if amare misses one game out of 82 against, oh, the knicks, who gives a shit. but if he misses one game in a best of 7 series? it could turn the entire series around.
i have to blame the suns assistant coaches a bit... i've been an assistant coach, all be it on the high school level, where a skirmish has broken out, and the job of (at least) one of the assistant coaches is to make sure NO one leaves the bench area, even in a minor little pushing match. i know it's a bit harder to hold back a 6'11" 250 pound amare stoudamire, but someone on the suns staff needed to address the bench... they didn't all need to run over to see if nash was okay (but considering that nash is the entire suns team, i can see why they did).
the worst of it all is that we should be talking about how phoenix finally rose to the occasion in a game they looked like they would lose to pull one out on the road... about those two absolutely gorgeous behind the back passes from nash to stoudamire... but instead we're talking about this bullshit.