[David Hoff]

First off, many people have the wrong impression about Ron Artest because all they hear about him is what the national media tells them. Living in Indy, I get to see him play almost nightly and he very rarely does something that is dirty or illegal. In fact, he received a flagrant foul about a week ago because of his reputation. A few days later, NBA took back the flagrant and cleared his record of it since he did nothing wrong. This has happened to him many times in the past as well. I'm not saying he hasn't messed up before, but I don't think he's as crazy as some make him out to be.

The melee that occurred was not completely Artest's fault or Ben Wallace's fault. I think a good portion of the blame needs to go to the few people in the stands who instigated the brawl by throwing things at the Pacers. I'm not saying Artest should have done what he did, but it is understandable. Also last night when Shaq was asked about the situation, he said he would have reacted the same way that Artest did.