Pacers still rebounding from brawl

The Indiana Pacers, hobbled by injuries and disheartened by their involvement in the infamous brawl in Auburn Hills, Mich., come to MCI Center tonight hoping to turn their season around.

An Eastern Conference power a year ago, the Pacers' playoff hopes took a beating this season when members of the team exchanged punches with Detroit Pistons fans on Nov. 19. The NBA responded by suspending swingman Stephen Jackson for 30 games and forward Ron Artest for 73 games. Forward-center Jermaine O'Neal received a 25-game suspension but missed only 15 after an arbitrator reduced the ban on appeal.

The melee was one of the country's most violent clashes between athletes and fans ever; and although the league and the public may have moved on, nothing for the Pacers has been the same since.

"What people don't get is they didn't just lose a little" as a result of the brawl, Pistons guard Richard Hamilton said. "They lost a lot."

Lengthy suspensions for the team's top three scorers, wretched publicity, misdemeanor assault and battery charges hanging over the heads of five players and a rash of injuries have undermined the team's confidence, Pacers President Donnie Walsh said. "There is no silver lining until we get our team functioning the way it was. It's got to be put back together again."

Not even the return of two of the Pacers' three suspended stars, O'Neal and Jackson, has helped.

The Pacers (22-24) are below .500 for the first time since 2002. They finished last year with the league's best regular season record (61-21), but in the current campaign have fallen out of the conference's top eight teams. That means if the season ended today, the Pacers would miss the playoffs. Should the club fail to qualify for the postseason, it would snap a seven-year streak of playoff appearances.

Last season, the club's longest losing streak was two games. Last week, the Pacers dropped their sixth in a row before winning their last two.

Most sports observers have seen countless replays of the brawl: Artest and Jackson storming into the stands to throw blows with spectators after a fan threw a cup that struck Artest in the face; O'Neal knocking a man on his backside.

But the bad news kept coming.

Jackson had played in only five games since returning from his suspension when he drew a one-game suspension last week for verbally abusing a referee in the closing moments of the Pacers' 98-97 loss to the Toronto Raptors.

Two weeks ago, the franchise had to revisit the brawl yet again when O'Neal, Jackson, Anthony Johnson, David Harrison and Artest were in court to answer to misdemeanor assault and battery charges. The players must return for another hearing in the spring.

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"You could see the frustration setting in," said reserve swingman Jonathan Bender, as he received treatment on his sore knees. Bender has played in only seven games this season and was placed on the injured list on Friday. Guard Jamaal Tinsley bruised his left foot in the second quarter of Monday night's 89-88 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. He was held out of the Toronto game on Wednesday.

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Suspensions and injuries have forced 10 of the Pacers' top 11 players to miss at least six games.

Then last week TNT reported that Pacers mainstay Reggie Miller was planning to retire at the end of the season.

Miller denied the report, but to players who already consider themselves under siege, the story reinforced their belief that somebody or something is out to get them, Jackson said.

"All of this stuff has taken a toll on everybody here," said Jackson. "This doesn't seem like the same organization as the one that started the season. But nobody is complaining. We're standing together as a team and we're going to come out of this as a team."

Jackson and Walsh say adversity has united the club. On the day the players appeared in court, Walsh joined them. As they waited to see the judge, the players found themselves somehow waiting in the same room with the fans they are accused of fighting with during the melee.

Walsh, the only person present who wasn't a defendant, lawyer or courtroom guard, tried to lighten the mood with a joke: "I told the players 'We're either going to jail together or to the next game.' "

Walsh said the team supports the players and has no intention of purging anyone involved in the brawl. That includes Artest, who began practicing with the team again two weeks ago. "He tries to help keep practices very competitive," Walsh said. "He's wants to help prepare them."

"We're not shopping Ron," Walsh added. "I've told the guys because of their age and that they are all are on long-term contracts, everybody is going to be back together. I tell them not to forget that when we are all together, we are a contender."