So much has been said about the Baron Davis-Jason Richardson fouls, here and in other places, that I wanted to air my final thoughts about the matter and be done with it. Frankly, I’m getting sick of talking and reading about it, and I think we should all take our cues from the players themselves, who have already made peace and moved on.

First, see the video and judge for yourself.

the Davis/Fisher play (check at about 0:48)

the Richardson/Okur play (I think the commentary is Turkish)

Note that I’m not posting anything about the Harrington foul. It was a basketball play and was properly called at the time, in my opinion. No more need be said.

LOTS of different people have sounded off about the Davis and Richardson fouls, notably among the mainstream media Charley Rosen on FOX Sports, Kelly Dwyer on SI.com, and Bruce Jenkins in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In the blogosphere, there were equally vitriolic viewpoints coming from right here and at Golden State of Mind. (See Ballhype for several other blogs on the subject.)

It’s impossible to give an opinion on this without bias. And I’m not going to try. Obviously, I’m going to favor the Jazz in my statement here. If you don’t want to read that, you don’t have to come to a Jazz fan site. Having said that, I am a journalist by profession and by choice and I try to stay as objective as possible.

I don’t think either of those fouls was malicious. Neither of them was intended to hurt anyone, as Fisher himself said. Even Okur said he overreacted.

Do I think that either foul was justified? No way. Throwing someone to the ground like that is never justified. And I don’t buy that “Okur shouldn’t have disrespected” theory, especially when Davis essentially tried the same thing with his Game 3 dunk, and succeeded spectacularly (man, I don’t even mind that dunk; it was incredible to watch and the game was out of reach anyway).

But do I think that there should be as much fuss as there has been? No. The plays were called correctly at the time (except that there should have been at least a regular foul on Davis). The game is over. Everyone needs to move on.

Also, anyone calling Davis or Richardson “thugs” needs to re-think things. They’re not thugs. They’re not gang-bangers. They’re basketball players. They made basketball plays — two unfortunate, (in my opinion) uncalled-for plays, but plays nevertheless. There’s no need for any sort of racism or lingering hatred or grudges for these events, especially when the Jazz got the win anyway. These fouls — two isolated incidents in an otherwise fun series — say nothing about any individual’s or team’s character or personality or, heaven forbid, race. They’re just fouls. (Let me also add that no author on this blog called any Golden State player a “thug” or insulted him personally in any way, other than to disagree with his actions ON the court.)

Jazz fans. Warriors fans. Let us unite in something more constructive, like the appreciation of our different styles of excellent basketball, or the assets of Jessica Alba. Let us move on to cheering on our teams in Game 5 on Tuesday night, and may the best team win.

(It just so happens that that team is the Jazz. Told you I was going to be biased.)
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Layton Shumway is the copy chief for Brigham Young University’s Daily Universe. You can reach him at lss83@byu.net.