November 19: a date that the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons dread to this day. Malice at the Palace refers to a massive brawl that broke out during an NBA Game between fans and players of the Pacers and Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan, in November 2004. Following the incident, nine players were suspended and five players were charged with assault.
Among the players charged with assault was the six-time NBA All-Star (three-time at the time of the incident), Jermaine O’Neal. He recently appeared on the “Out the Mud” podcast to share his side of the story about the haunting night that the Pacers would rather want erased from their history.
“I have this thumb drive, this big with everything that’s got what the Netflix doc got done. So I’m there and I’m watching, I’m stunned and I’m looking around like this m****erf****r is really trying to get down here? Yeah, it took me a second to digest it, next thing you know, everybody’s on the court and I’m looking around it ain’t no security, next thing you know, you got a dude jump around my neck. See, nobody never ever saw this. The film was available, guy jumped around my neck, I had a security guard that [went] with me everywhere, he got into it with a fan.”
“I’m at that point now, I’m out of shock, now I’m in retaliation, right? Boom, slam the dude on the table, and I look to the left because again my security guy’s to the left, and I look to the left and I see Anthony Johnson down there. See, people think I just ran in and was just hitting, that wasn’t the case. So I saw him, he’s on the ground the guy, the little guy is on top of him, and there are people standing around him. I see Anthony Johnson trying to get up, and I run over there and I slip, but I hit him because now he’s trying to bring harm to my homeboy, my teammate.”
“Here’s the thing that really bugged me out, see, I went to federal court. See, people thought I was suspended, and came back just and did all my suspension. I went to federal court and won. I went to federal court in New York City, we went through the appeals process, we went through all the [processes] and won, and the judge said, ‘I had every right to get that man off your back to do what I did.’ Yeah, every right. Media ain’t going to talk about that, nobody said nothing.”
Netflix made a documentary on the fight and the aftermath of the incident. It was released in August 2021. What started as a fight between Ron Artest and Ben Wallace became a massive brawl between the players and the crowd.
Now, nearly two decades after the incident, O’Neal has found the courage to call out the media. He also goes on to call out the NBA in the interview, where he claims that the NBA had the responsibility to stand with its players during the court proceedings, if not to ensure their security on the court itself.
In my opinion, while the NBA as a league cannot handle the day-to-day management of an arena, they can set up security guidelines, which I believe they have done since this incident, so that this does not happen again. However, the NBA was wrong in not publicly standing with the players.
