GAME#65 LAKERS VS THUNDER 4/22/12 12:30PM ABC

[Wile E. Coyote]

I went from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other yesterday.

At the half, I was deflated. Here we go, another lackluster effort. In the fourth, I got a bit excited when Kobe dove for the ball, just like the players did, apparently. Then when they made it a game, I was just happy they were hustling, even if they lost the game close. Then when they tied it going into overtime, I was jumping up and down. Kobe had shown that he's still the clutch-est dude in the NBA. Then I felt relief when they dodged a bullet when Durant missed his eightieth shot of the game at the end of OT. When they went up by four, I knew it was ours. I felt like it was the best win of the year.

[Anklebreaker702]

Bottom line is, World Peace knew someone in blue jersey was near him and raised his arm and elbowed the crap out of Harden. You actually believe that was unintentional?

Yeh, and Harden knew what he was doing after Artest had a great dunk. He was the one that made contact with Metta while he was celebrating. He wanted to create trouble then flop like a fish like he did against Chandler.

Harden intentionally wanted to make artest lose his mind but he should have learned that you don't try to do that against an "mentally instable" person. Probably he thought Artest was just an "acting" and he was not really mentally perturbed.

I feel really sorry for Artest because he does the BEST he can to control himself. He really try hard, and a annoying idiot ruined that for him. And I'm talking about the person here, not the player. In fact I put on my sig "#2 artest hater" the whole season.

Also, I'm hope Harden is ok. I'm not saying he DESERVED it just by trying to create a minor altercation to draw some free throws from that but now he surely learned his lesson.

HE'LL NEVER EVER AGAIN do that.

He's lucky, and artest's also lucky, that Ron didn't connected directly on harden's temple with the point of his elbow, if he did and with artest's power it could get really really ugly.

So then artest would be out of the league and Harden would "win", right? Yeh, but Harden would probably watch the playoffs on his bed...

So yeh, try these cheap tactics against fake thugs like garnett, barnes, griffin, etc, don't try that against an insane person. I'm sure He-man gave this lesson in one of his episodes.

P.s. I want to reaffirm that I'm not defending Artest, I'm just EXPLAINING why, IMHO, doing what Harden did was wrong. He probably didn't know much about Artest. Now he does.

I hope he's ok and that Stern fine and suspend Artest with justice.

Totally true. I was watching that whole play before the elbows even happened. I was saying why is Harden even up on Arrest like that after the play? He's on offense. Arrest to me threw a "get off me" type of elbow not expecting to land to dudes dome.

[semi-sentient]

Totally true. I was watching that whole play before the elbows even happened. I was saying why is Harden even up on Arrest like that after the play? He's on offense. Arrest to me threw a "get off me" type of elbow not expecting to land to dudes dome.

Yeah, that's how I felt about the elbow as well, but Artest has to keep his cool a little better as well. Given his past history no one is really going to see it that way, whether he meant to knock Harden in the head or not.

[Jajwanda]

Harden is a punk. He's way too heavily protected. The touch fouls in him are Wade like. He expected yet another stupid flop like the one with Chandler to come out of this.

[Sedale Threatt]

I have to say, after watching the two clips, there is a remarkable similarity.

[KB24TBOTB]

I have to say, after watching the two clips, there is a remarkable similarity.

Indeed, hence why I have no sympathy for this guy. What Artest did deserves a punishment but it's hard to feel bad for a punk like Harden who was trying to start ****

[tigerman]

no twat, what were saying is that yr a fake assed hater...

Thank you for playing the role of "I don't have anything meaningful to contribute in the discussion so I'll just resort to name-calling" to the hilt. Bravo!

Just because I'm expressing my thoughts on MWP's act doesn't mean I am already a hater. What you're saying doesn't have any sense at all.

[tigerman]

Harden didn't deserve that Elbow but at the same time he shouldn't have gotten in the way like that after the play. There's absolutely no excuse for either one of them imo.

I don't get it. You are in agreement that Harden didn't deserve it but at the same time putting malice as to him being in MWP's path. What Harden did was a normal thing in basketball. In fact, the video shows that Harden was already near the crime scene (just near the no charge zone) prior to MWP dunking the ball. It's not like Harden came out of nowhere just to impede MWP's path.

[tigerman]

But to come up with stupid situations that Harden was setting a screen for a fast break to justify what Harden did is downright stupid.

Why you call my suggestion stupid and not your name-calling is beyond me.

If Ron had just run through Harden, and Harden hit his head on the floor, would we still be talking about this? Probably.

Of course not.

If MWP only shoved Harden, there's no issue at all to talk about.

The game was physical, and it's not uncommon to see punches, shoves, elbows thrown in physical games.

You don't have to state the obvious. I know that. The problem is Harden didn't do enough to warrant such very violent reaction from MWP.

The reason why everyone is up in arms about it is because the elbow landed.

Or perhaps the reputation of MWP or the possible repercussion to the 3rd best player of one of the legitimate contenders or because Harden didn't do any thing stupid to warrant such a nasty elbow.