The Detroit Pistons visited the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night and to say things got a bit heated is an understatement.
In the third quarter, Jalen Duren drove to the basket and was fouled by Charlotte’s Moussa Diabate. They got into it and it just spiraled from there as a major brawl broke out. Isaiah Stewart left the bench to get into it, so he’s facing some real trouble.
There were two things that really jumped out to us: the reactions of Kon Knueppel and referee Dannica Mosher.
When the fight started, Knueppel, who often looks a bit sleepy, though his play belies that, was in the corner. He didn’t seem to realize what happened right away and didn’t rush in immediately either. When he did, predictably, he played peacemaker, trying to get his teammate Diabate out of it.
Mosher also hung back, and that’s a different issue.
On the one hand, for the most part, she did what most sensible women would do: she let the guys work it out themselves, and these are particularly large, strong guys, so good call.
But she is an NBA official, and part of her job is to manage things like this. You can’t really blame her, it was entirely rational, but she failed to do her job.
This is not good. Officials need to manage the game and when violence occurs, they have to get it under control. She was clearly not willing to get involved and in fact stepped away.
Mosher is obviously a good referee or she wouldn’t be working NBA games. However, this could have spun out of control and she was nowhere to be found.
Obviously it’s not all on the officials. There are only three of them. They rely on the coaches and their staffs to help them in situations like this.
Still, running away from a fight is a terrible reaction for an official. If the players deserve to be suspended, and they clearly do, Mosher does too for dereliction of duty. Her reaction was entirely unacceptable for an NBA referee.
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