Hit and Ron

Players around the NBA on Saturday questioned the behavior of fans, security personnel at the Palace of Auburn Hills, and the four suspended players in Friday night’s incident -- Ron Artest, Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson of the Indiana Pacers, and Ben Wallace of the Detroit Pistons.

“I know they have a great rivalry, but when it gets to the point where you start to fight the fans, that’s where it’s getting too far,” said Laker point guard Chucky Atkins, who played almost four seasons with Detroit before being traded last season. “That’s a life-or-death situation. You saw situations [Friday] night where chairs are being thrown, you had an old guy on the ground, he could have had a heart attack and died, anything. That’s uncalled for at a basketball game, at any NBA function.”

The brawl began when Artest and Wallace squared off in the final minute of the game. It ended with numerous players in the stands, and Artest, Jackson and O’Neal throwing punches at fans. The Auburn Hills police department has launched a criminal investigation that could take weeks to complete, if not longer, and the NBA still must decide the exact number of games to be missed by the four players, a determination that could come today.

Indiana, which lost to Detroit in six contentious games in last season’s Eastern Conference finals, used only six players Saturday in an 86-83 loss to the Orlando Magic.

With three players suspended, the Pacers had to suit up injured Scot Pollard and Jonathan Bender to meet the league minimum of eight players.

Neither played.

The Pistons, meanwhile, will lose one of the league’s top rebounders in Wallace. The forward, who has been coping with the recent death of his brother, Sam, started the on-court fracas by shoving Artest in the throat, but he did not exchange blows with any fans and is not expected to draw as severe a penalty as the Pacer players.

Mark Jackson, the Pacers’ point guard from 1994 to 2000, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see suspensions of 30 to 40 games for the three Pacers.

“You have to stop the bleeding, and stop it now,” he said. “We have the best commissioner in sports, and I’m sure he’ll do just that.... We can’t allow young America to see what we displayed.

“If I’ve been disrespected, my family has been disrespected, then you, as a man, have to say, ‘Hey, there are people here who are qualified to handle the situation. Let me point [out] the person who’s wrong and have them removed from the arena.’ It’s not my place to fight, it’s my place to play the game.”

As the Lakers completed practice Saturday and the Clippers finished an afternoon game against the Houston Rockets, blame was pinned on fans, players and security.

Laker forward Lamar Odom, who grew up with Artest in New York and played with him on summer-league travel teams, found fault with fans blamed for “poisonous behavior” earlier Saturday by Commissioner David Stern.

“After he was hit, Ron Artest lays on the scorer’s table just to go chill out,” Odom said. “I guess he knows nothing’s going to happen good and then fans start throwing beer or whatever it was. If Ron Artest is playing a game and he takes a cup of Gatorade and throws it on a fan, I know that’s completely wrong. If a fan threw a cup of Gatorade on a player, I think that would be completely wrong.”

Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy sided with Odom, saying the cup that struck Artest near the neck was the difference between a controlled situation and chaos.

“It could have knocked his eye out, caused brain damage, could have done any number of really bad things to him, and I think when that happened he snapped and went into the stands after the fan,” Dunleavy said. “As much as we’d all like to think we have the restraint and we know, ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ until it happens to you, you really don’t know what you would do.”

Atkins, who acknowledged that Detroit fans could be “pretty bad,” said players need to ignore abusive fans.

“I don’t think it’s that hard,” he said. “Some things are to be expected, especially now as a Laker. The Lakers have been on top for so long, when you step into other peoples’ arena, they want to see you lose bad. I expect for people to say bad things or negative things about me or my teammates. By the same token, I’m not going to be running into the stands.”

Atkins blamed inadequate security at the Palace, citing the two fans who were punched on the court by Artest and O’Neal.

“My whole thing was, where was the security?” Atkins said. “You’ve got two guys walking onto the court.... Where was the security at?”

But, as TNT analyst Charles Barkley said: “A couple of people said to me today, ‘What about security?’ I said, ‘You’ve got 20,000 fans -- There ain’t enough security.’ ”

Times staff writers J.A. Adande, Jerry Crowe and Larry Stewart contributed to this report.

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Players vs. Fans

Some fan confrontations with athletes and officials at pro sports events in the United States:

* Nov. 19, 2004 -- Fans and players throw punches near the end of an Indiana Pacer-Detroit Piston game. Spectators toss a chair, beer, soda, ice and popcorn. Indiana’s Ron Artest, Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson and Detroit’s Ben Wallace are suspended indefinitely.

* Sept. 13, 2004 -- Texas Ranger pitcher Frank Francisco throws a chair that hits a woman in the stands at Oakland and breaks her nose.

* Sept. 19, 2002 -- A father and son burst onto the field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, slam Kansas City Royal first-base coach Tom Gamboa to the ground and punch and kick him.

* May 16, 2000 -- After a spectator at Wrigley Field grabs the cap of Dodger backup catcher Chad Kreuter in the bullpen, Kreuter goes into the crowd and several Dodgers follow, trading punches with fans.

* Dec. 23, 1995 -- Fans at Giants Stadium hurl dozens of snowballs at the Chargers’ sideline, interrupting a football game between San Diego and New York. One snowball knocks an equipment manager unconscious.

* Feb. 6, 1995 -- The Houston Rockets’ Vernon Maxwell enters the stands and punches an NBA fan who had been heckling him during a game at Portland, Ore. Maxwell is suspended 10 games without pay and fined $20,000. He later settles out of court with the fan.

* Dec. 23, 1979 -- Boston Bruin forward Stan Jonathan is hit in the face by an object thrown by a fan, and right wing Terry O’Reilly is harassed by a stick-wielding fan at the end of a 4-3 victory over the Rangers at New York. Several Boston players, including O’Reilly and Mike Milbury, go into the stands to fight with spectators. Milbury removes a shoe from a fan and beats him with it.

* July 12, 1979 -- A radio DJ blows up disco records in the outfield at Comiskey Park, and a riot nearly ensues at “Disco Demolition Night.” Some of the 50,000 fans get into the game against the Detroit Tigers for 98 cents if they bring a record. They toss the records on the field, throw beers and cherry bombs and start fires. Game 2 of the doubleheader is called off.

* April 25, 1976 -- Chicago Cub center fielder Rick Monday rescues the American flag from two fans who try to set it on fire in the outfield at Dodger Stadium.

* April 2, 1969 -- After Toronto’s Pat Quinn knocks out Boston Bruin great Bobby Orr with a vicious check during an NHL playoff game, a brawl breaks out on the ice and in the stands.

* Oct. 9, 1934 -- After the Cardinals’ Joe Medwick slides hard into Mickey Owen during World Series Game 7 at Detroit, fans throw tomatoes at Medwick when he takes his position in left field.

* July 11, 1886 -- Umpire George Bradley is hit by a beer mug during mayhem in the second game of a doubleheader at Cincinnati.