Pistons, Pacers Ready to Move On

Like most players involved in today’s rematch between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons, Jermaine O’Neal just wants the game to be over.

“It’s extremely important for both teams to come out and play a nice, hard game that stays on the court,” O’Neal said Friday. “Nobody has any bitter feelings between each other personally.”

O’Neal will be playing for the first time since being suspended for his role in an ugly brawl with Detroit fans on Nov. 19.

The melee led to NBA Commissioner David Stern’s suspending Ron Artest for the season, Stephen Jackson for 30 games and O’Neal for 25. An arbitrator reduced O’Neal’s suspension by 10 games, a ruling upheld by a federal judge Thursday, which allows O’Neal to play while the judge considers a lawsuit brought by the league challenging an arbitrator’s authority to hear the grievance.

O’Neal said he thought Stern’s punishments were too severe, even though he accepted responsibility for his role in the fight.

“You have to accept that punishment if you’ve been involved with it, right or wrong,” said O’Neal, who will start against the Pistons. “I didn’t think it warranted a season [for Artest]. I didn’t think it warranted 30 games or 25 games. That’s a lot of games for the situation that was collectively just out of control.”

The All-Star apologized for his role in a brawl that has put a black eye on the league and its players and said he was eager to get back on the court to help his struggling team, which is 5-10 since losing its top three players to the suspensions.

“This is a great league, and for something like this to happen and for people to kind of step back and say, ‘The NBA is too hip-hoppish,’ c’mon now,” O’Neal said. “There’s a lot of good things that are going on in this league.”

Both teams expressed a desire to move on, hoping that an incident-free rematch today would go a long way toward making that happen.

“I just hope we can get past this and go back to focusing on basketball,” Piston Coach Larry Brown said. “I hate what happened, and I hate what it has done to the league. How do we explain to the kids what happened? My son is afraid to come to the games.”