The Beckett Blog

There was a brawl last night in the WNBA.  Forgive me for laughing, I can’t stop.

The end of the L.A. Sparks-Detroit Shock game had all of the drama of Days of Our Lives.

It had been simmering for a while, and then with a few seconds left, the Sparks’ Candace Parker and Detroit’s Plenette Pierson started fighting.

There were bodies flying.  Lies were told.  People going to the hospital.  Punches thrown from behind.  Tears were shed.  Arrests could be made.  Lifetime suspensions are being tossed around in the rumor mills.

As a member of the late ’80s Detroit Pistons team known as the “Bad Boys,” Rick Mahorn was known for his hustle and hard work, as well as fearlessness (among other things).

Now, after Tuesday night’s “Malice at the Palace II,” all Rick Mahorn will be known as is a punk (not that he wasn’t already in certain NBA cities).

Just as the fight was really starting to get out of hand, Rick Mahorn threw Lisa Leslie down on the court.

The face of a 'peacemaker'

“I was trying to protect the whole game, the integrity of the game,” Mahorn said. “The WNBA is very special to me because I have four daughters. I don’t even raise my hand to them, and I would never push a woman.”

That, sir, is a lie.  It’s on tape.

Don’t lie, good LORD, when will people learn to just tell the truth?  Fess up, and you will find that America is a very forgiving place.  Anyone heard of Andy Pettitte?

Even if he wasn’t trying to hurt Lisa Leslie, and I honestly feel he wasn’t, what would possess him to lie about it?  He pushed her!  I bet a WNBA game check that Leslie threw in a bit of extra flopping and sliding across the court, but the facts are the facts.

Rick Mahorn shoved a woman.  Period.

I know that WNBA games have ratings that are slightly better than the midnight-to-2am block on the Home Shopping Network, but still the cameras were rolling, Rick!

Stupid.

Then, as if beating up ONE girl didn’t satisfy Mahorn, he gets caught on camera appearing to rough-up another one.  This time it’s the Sparks’ assistant coach, Laura Beeman.

Mahorn: "Come here lady! Did YOU shove that girl to the ground?"

Then you have DeLisha Milton-Jones, who hits like a…well…she throws a punch, uh, that wasn’t really a punch…let’s see, ummm…

DeLisha hits like someone who probably never learned how to throw a punch.  (Whew!  I almost came off as a sexist jerk there.)

Even better, she did it from behind.  Trying to defend her fallen teammate Lesllie after Mahorn manhandled (no pun intended) her, Milton-Jones came up behind the Shock assistant coach and…attempted to cause bodily injury with her hand.  (Whew again!)

On an even stranger note, Cheryl Ford was rolled off in a wheelchair after the fight.  That sure makes it sound like it was a tough battle!

I had the sound down on my TV when I first watched this last night, so I initially thought she got shot by someone in the crowd,  this is Detroit after all.  BOOM!  She fell like a rock.  However, no shots were fired.

In fact, nothing happened to her at all, only adding to the drama.

Only in the WNBA can you get such fantastic action.  Only in the WNBA, or some bizarre Stan Lee-type parallel universe, can you hear Bill Laimbeer saying the word, “peacemaker” with a straight face.

“Rick Mahorn is known as a peacemaker, from even the brawl we had here with Indiana,” Laimbeer said. “He went out there to get people off the pile, and to get people to stop the confrontation. That’s who he is, that’s what he does.”

*cue obnoxious laugh track*

Bad Boys, indeed.

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This video is great…near the end (about 4:45 into it) they interview Lisa Leslie.  She starts off really talking to the reporter…and then she suddenly, near the 5:10 mark, she snaps into “athlete-talk,” with all the typical sound bytes that 99.9% of interviews consist of.

Classic.