Five years ago, on Nov. 19, 2004, the Indiana Pacers visited the Palace of Auburn Hills, Mich., to play the Detroit Pistons. As with every Pacers-Pistons game during that time, the game was very chippy and physical.

With 45.9 seconds remaining in the game and the Pacers ahead 97-82, Pistons center Ben Wallace and Pacers forward Ron Artest got tangled underneath the basket. Wallace didn’t appreciate Artest’s hard foul so he shoved him with both hands.

After referees and players tried to separate the two, Artest goes to the scorer’s table and lies there for a few seconds. What transpired next was the ugliest bench-clearing, fan-clearing melee in NBA history – and quite possibly in American sports history.

Five years ago, Ron Artest went into the stands at the Palace of Auburn Hills and forever embeded an ugly image of the NBA and its players.

A fan threw a cup of beverage in Artest’s direction and, in TruWarier fashion, Artest rushed up the stands to confront the perpetrator and the pushing and shoving turned into an all-out Mike Tyson-like punch-0ut.

Pacers forward Stephen Jackson went into the stands with Artest and began throwing haymakers as if he was in a “Toughman” competition. Soon, fans were punching back and the brawl spilled over onto the court.

A man in a Pistons jersey approached Artest on the court, shouting at him. Artest punched him in the face, knocking the man to the floor before leaving the court. Artest was pulled away, and the fan charged back. Artest’s teammate, Jermaine O’Neal, stepped in and punched the man.

Former Pistons ticket holder and the infamous fan that threw the cup at Artest retold the incident to ESPN’s Jay Crawford Thursday morning.

“I remember throwing the cup, actually a cup of Diet Coke, not a beer, but I had been drinking and I’ve had issues with alcohol in the past,” Green told “ESPN First Take.” “I remember [Artest] running into the stands and grabbing the wrong person and I felt bad. I grabbed Artest from behind, the whole thing was kind of a huge blur. It happened so fast.”

“Just a very bad scene,” he added. “It was a scary situation.”

Green said Artest called his home several months ago to apologize.

“He said that he was sorry, that … the whole thing embarrassed him as it did me,” Green said. “He wanted to do something for the community for troubled youth. Of course, I can’t do much on this end without him.

“We tried to come up with something to give back to the community and come up with something positive. It’s not like it’s not always going to be known as the brawl, but maybe we could take something good out of it. We’re going to try to do something in inner-city Detroit or L.A., maybe after the season ends and he has more free time on his hands.”

Green was convicted of misdemeanor assault — he punched Artest when the player stormed into the crowd at Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills — and sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years’ probation. He also was ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous and anger management counseling, and was banished for life from Detroit’s home games.

Artest, who now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, was suspended for a record 73 regular-season games and 13 playoff games, and lost approximately $5 million in salary. Overall, the NBA suspended nine players for more than 140 games combined, including a 30-game suspension for Jackson, 15 for O’Neal, five for Pacers guard Anthony Johnson and six for Wallace. Others got one-game suspensions for leaving the bench.

Artest and Green will never live down the Brawl at The Palace, but both men claim they have changed since their tempers ignited a firestorm the NBA is still trying to extinguish.

“You know, I realized then the trouble I got in that night pretty much stemmed from alcohol,” Green said. “I wouldn’t have done that sober. Look at the video of people throwing stuff. One little thing triggered this huge event with people throwing stuff and getting way out of hand. It all stemmed from alcohol. If we can control that, we can control these situations.”

As for Artest, Green said: “He’s reached out to the community. He’s trying his hardest to let people know he’s not the same person.”

Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton, holdovers from Detroit's 2004 championship team, will be sitting out the rest of the NBA playoffs after getting swept by Cleveland in the first round.

Rip Hamilton would always say that, “If it ain’t rough, it ain’t right.” Well, it has been a really rough last 12 months in the state of Michigan. First, The Big Three (Ford, Chrysler and General Motors) sputtered with the rest of the economy. Second, the University of Michigan suffered its worst season in more than 120 years. And third, the Detroit Lions became the first NFL franchise to go 0-16.

Now, add the Detroit Pistons to the state’s list of casualties.

Deeeeetroit basketball is dead! Deeeeetroit basketball is dead!

After six consecutive trips to the Eastern Conference finals, the Pistons and their play-the-right-way approach finally broke down like a 1980 Oldsmobile. The wheels started coming off in the first two games against top-seeded Cleveland and then the engine blew out in the last two games. It did not come as a big surprise that the Pistons were eliminated by the Cavaliers in the first round. What was a little disturbing was how the once proud Pistons bowed out, getting swept in four ho-hum games and LeBron James and Co. barely breaking a sweat in doing so.

Here are some of the stat lines in Game 4 from the core of the Pistons’ 2004 NBA championship team: Rip Hamilton, 2 for 12 in 37 minutes; Rasheed Wallace 0 for 7 in 29 minutes; Tayshaun Prince, 1 for 5 in 31 minutes. All three combined for eight points in an embarrassing 99-78 loss at home.

GM Joe Dumars will have a busy offseason retooling this squad, and there are a ton of questions he needs to address. Will he bring back Michael Curry as coach? Will Sheed walk out as an unrestricted free agent? Is Rodney Stuckey now the face of the franchise? Is Prince on the trading block? There is no need to address the Allen Iverson situation because A.I. has left the station a long time ago, sending a clear message to Dumars and the Pistons that he does not want to come off the bench and be a token player. Don’t let the “back injury” fool you. The Answer was not down with the whole sixth-man thing.

But the Pistons began losing its way long before the Iverson issue. The demise of the franchise could be traced to the Chauncey Billups trade to Denver, a move that still baffles a lot of Detroit fans. There are some guys you just don’t get rid of. Sure, Billups was probably on the downside of his career but Mr. Big Shot was the unquestioned leader of that locker room and moving him out was a huge gamble on Dumars’ part.

Basically, you could say that getting rid of center Ben Wallace knocked the Pistons down, and getting rid of Billups was the final blow that put them to rest.

The Boston Celtics are not optimistic about Kevin Garnett's injured knee.

When Paul Pierce was asked which team was the toughest to eliminate in the Celtics’ road to winning their 17th championship, he said, without any hesitation, “Cleveland.”

The Cavaliers pushed the Celtics to seven grueling games in last season’s Eastern Conference semifinals, and when the series was over, the Celtics and pretty much every team in the East said that if Cavaliers management provides LeBron James another all-star player to play with, look out!

When Mo Williams joined Cleveland this season, the Cavs soared to the best record in franchise history and claimed home-court advantage throughout the NBA playoffs.

News of Kevin Garnett to likely to miss the entire playoffs was so devasting that Boston GM Danny Ainge suffered a mild heart attack.  Garnett was tabbed very, very questionable by Coach Doc Rivers after watching KG struggle in practice. Though Boston will not be the same without its quarterback on defense, the Celtics are still the champs and they still have two studs in Pierce and Ray Allen.

Orlando did not finish well and is still vastly untested in the playoffs. As good as Dwight Howard has been during the regular season, there are still doubts about his ability to consistently carry the Magic on his broad shoulders when it matters most. He still lacks a killer instinct. He’s just too nice. And if Orlando gets in any type of trouble, it will be interesting to watch whether Coach Stan Van Gundy pushes the panic button.

OneManFastbreak.net analyzes and predicts the winners of the Eastern Conference playoffs:

FIRST ROUND

(1) Cleveland Cavaliers vs. (8) Detroit Pistons – In a rematch of the 2007 conference finals, this should be a one-sided affair. Cleveland will not overlook Detroit. CAVALIERS IN 4.

(2) Boston Celtics vs. (7) Chicago Bulls – The Bulls will make it close but the Celtics have enough pride to avoid getting bounced in the first round. CELTICS IN 5.

(3) Orlando Magic vs. (6) Philadelphia 76ers – Orlando swept the Sixers during the regular season and there is no reason why the Magic can’t do the same in the playoffs. MAGIC IN 4.

(4) Atlanta Hawks vs. (5) Miami Heat – NBA scoring champ Dwyane Wade is good enough to extend this series to the max. But in the end, home-court advantage will be the difference. HAWKS IN 7.

CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS

(1) Cleveland Cavaliers vs. (4) Atlanta Hawks – Size will matter in this series. Can the undersized Hawks keep up with the bigger Cavs? The answer: too much Ilgauskas, Varejao and LeBron. CAVALIERS IN 6.

(2) Boston Celtics vs. (3) Orlando Magic – With or without KG, the Celtics are still better than the Magic. Boston won 62 games and most of it was done without Garnett. CELTICS IN 6.

CONFERENCE FINALS

(1) Cleveland Cavaliers vs. (2) Boston Celtics – When Boston was completely healthy last season and LeBron was basically by himself, it still took the Celts seven games to knock off the Cavs. This season, Cleveland clinches the series in Boston. CAVALIERS IN 6.

Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers fell to Allen Iverson and the Detroit Pistons at Staples Center back on Nov. 20. (GETTY IMAGES)

Before we crown the Los Angeles Lakers world champs for the 2008-09 season, let’s taper down the myopia and examine this team closely. Sure, the Lakers are rolling but their three losses are head-scratchers. The one-point loss to Indiana on Dec. 2 and the blowout loss at Sacramento on Dec. 9 were due to a lack of focus. The Lakers suffered from a serious case of “bitchassness.”

One of the symptoms of bitchassness is the feeling of “being better than others around you.” The Lakers came to Indianapolis and Sacramento thinking they were better than the Pacers and Kings, and played uninspired. Their turnstile-like defense and soft play inside allowed both teams to stay in the game. And I just wish Kobe Bryant would quit throwing passes to himself, such as the one where he shot the ball off the backboard with the intent of getting it back for his own put-back. That play was the epitome of bitchassness.

As for the other Lakers’ setback, suffered at the hands of the Detroit Pistons at Staples Center back on Nov. 14, that game re-opened a couple of old purple and gold wounds.

Let’s face it. The Lakers are far from being a great defensive team. They can slow teams down in spurts, but they cannot lock down on an opponent for long stretches. I’m not convinced the Lakers can stop good teams with their defense, at least not the same defense the Pistons, Spurs, Celtics or even the Cavaliers play. The Lakers’ greatest strength on defense is their length, but if teams can spread the court – like the Pistons and Pacers have done  – you can expose some of L.A.’s weaker one-on-one defenders like Derek Fisher, Sasha Vujacic, Vladimir Radmanovic, Pau Gasol and Jordan Farmar, who are all good defending in space but struggle in keeping guys out of the paint.

Also, the Lakers have yet to get over the mental block of playing against physical teams. It happened in the 2008 NBA Finals when the Celtics disrupted the triangle offense by putting their hands on the Lakers. The Celtics, Cavaliers and Pistons all play physical defense and all three teams are well-schooled in the art of pushing and shoving. When that happens, the Lakers need to toughen up and push back. This is the Lakers’ greatest deficiency. They play with a certain arrogance when they are ahead, but once the other team gets rough, they all tend to fold their tents. Schematically, there is nothing Coach Phil Jackson can do to fix this. This mental block is the most important aspect of the game the “fellas” must overcome in order to win a championship.

Despite their flaws, the Lakers still have the best player in the game in Kobe Bryant and the nobody in the Western Conference can matchup with their length and their depth. The three teams that can stay with the Lakers are Boston, Detroit and Cleveland. But all three reside in the East and only one can get to the Finals.