I know I've been quoting Terry Foster quite a bit today, but he has some valid points. Here is another one:

Rip has been under siege for a large part of this year. Yes, he did make a conscious effort to drive to the basket rather than settle for jump shots. And the other teams began to knock him down. It seemed to work towards the end of the season when Rip's production dropped of drastically and he was getting constantly T'd and always pissed off. Lets just hope that he can keep his composure in the playoffs and put all that behind him. That flagrant foul on Nelson sure helps.

If it's rough, it ain't right.

If this was hockey, we would put in Dale Davis and let him take care of sending a message to the Magic...

Dale Davis should send a message every single game, no matter who we are playing.

I'd love to see that!!!
RIP has to show he's a class act. This far, he shows that you can knock him down but he won't stay on the ground. I like that attitude.

Well at some point if you have guys trying to hurt you...what's wrong with retaliation? Like the DD idea Micro mentioned?

If they clobber Rip when he's in the air, it won't be enough to save the Magic, but it could mean a short postseason run for the Pistons.

This is one of the many reasons that I dislike the four-round playoff format, where a team that lost more than half of their regular-season games can go up against the conference leader. I would like to see the playoffs cut to three rounds, with only the top four teams from each conference. That way you would get more meaningful battles to make the playoffs at the end of the regular season, rather than a fight among mediocre teams to be a first-round doormat. When the playoffs started, every first-round matchup would be at least somewhat competitive. And finally, there's less chance that a star player would get hurt playing in a first-round series against a crappy opponent that has almost no chance of winning the series.

I think there has been enough said about reverting back to the best of 3 for the 1st round. That is a plausible solution. I don't think NBA will ever give up the revenues that an extra round of playoffs generates. And NBA is all about money, we all know it.

I really didn't think Nelson was doing anything malicious on that takedown of Rip.

It looked hit he just tried to hold him to prevent the and1. His arm dragged down on Rip's face and then Rip's legs gave out when he felt the pain.

Nelson assumed Rip was faking injury to get the flagrant call (as did I), so he did not act remorseful.

It's not just about the revenue. Having more teams in the playoffs keeps more teams and their respective fans interested in the season. With only 4 teams making the playoffs from each conference, look at all of the cities that would have given up on the season a month ago: New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York, Indiana, Washington, Orlando, Denver, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Golden State, and New Orleans. Many of these teams have already won playoff games. I like to see lots of teams still having something to shoot for as long as possible. Look what the Wild Card has done for baseball.