Watching the fallout from the Denver-Knicks melee Saturday night at MSG, you can't help but wonder how the Clippers would've reacted if it were Corey Maggette who was clotheslined by Mardy Collins?   After Maggette rose to confront Collins with a few words and Nate Robinson began to bite at Corey's ankles, would Elton Brand have entered the scrum to back Corey up?  Who'd come off the bench to deal with Jared Jeffries? 

There's nothing admirable about senseless bravado, in trying to front as a Bad Boys squad, particularly when you can't defend the paint with an Armet Gurkha.  Carmelo Anthony is, incontrovertibly, a colossal fuckwit - as if we needed confirmation, given his last couple of ejections on the Clippers' home floor.  What kind of superstar endangers his contending team's season for a sucker punch on...on...Mardy Collins?  Hell, Anthony's shot was the first Collins has blocked all year.   Robinson is a miniature poodle on an endless IV of Desoxyn and MD20/20.  And Isiah is a flailing, desperate hack whose only legacy is folly.

But the incident had me thinking in a general sense --- how much fight do these Clippers have in them?  For all the talk about not wanting to disrupt the Clippers' chemistry, how cohesive is this team?  Would the 2006-2007 Clippers stand in the line of fire for one another?  Are they furious enough to assert themselves when provoked by a challenge? 

Take pride that the Clippers have more sense than to engage in wrongheaded fights like Saturday night's fracas in New York.  But take solace in the fact that they don't have the passion to fight the good ones.