[Karthik]

I've watched the footage of the melee a few times now, and I can't stop shaking my head. The whole situation was ridiculous. Here's list of all the culprits.

The Fans -- You can't start throwing things at the players. It's stupid and immature, amd dangerous. Not just dangerous for the target, but as we saw tonight, dangerous for the thrower and for anyone sitting near him.

Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson et. al. -- I don't care if you got hit with a water bottle, that does not give you a right to go charging into the stands. Artest can talk about self defense all he wants, but let's be serious. He was not in imminent danger. There were security and police officers who would have dealt with that fan.

So Artest runs into the crowd, attacks a first guy who actually had no part in the situation, and then attacks the bottle thrower. While all of this is happening, a riot erupts. This is why players shouldn't go charging into the stands, even if they've been wronged. Inciting riots is not a good thing. In this riot many innocent people were shoved and trampled.

So the bottom line, everyone involved in this situation is to blame. The drunk cup tossing fans, the players who started attacking the fans. The porous security who did very little to stop the whole thing. Good grief.

Honestly, I'm not going to another NBA game, until I'm given some sort of assurance that this won't happen again. Knowing my luck, I'll be the guy who's sitting beside the drunken moron who throws the next cup, that ends up getting mistakenly attacked by Ron Artest.

This is going to leave a huge black mark on the NBA, it's fans and the entire city of Detroit. It's sad considering that most of the fans and players and had nothing to do with it. 'Tis life...

I really hope there are some major ramifications for those involved. We were very luck that no one was seriously injured (as far as we know). If proper punishment isn't handed out (to the players and the fans), I fear there will be a repeat down the line, where we aren't so lucky.