NEW YORK --- It was a WNBA smackdown Thursday, when the league suspended Detroit Shock assistant coach Rick Mahorn and 10 players for their roles in a skirmish with the Los Angeles Sparks earlier this week.
Shock forward Plenette Pierson was suspended Thursday for four games, the harshest penalty, for initiating and escalating the altercation.
Mahorn was suspended for two games, as were Shannon Bobbitt and Murriel Page, of the Sparks, for the incident at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
"As a team, we're incensed that Rick Mahorn was suspended," Detroit coach Bill Laimbeer said. "He was trying to be a peacemaker and now he's being thrown under the bus."
Players suspended for one game included Detroit's Kara Braxton, former Georgia standout Tasha Humphrey, Elaine Powell and Sheri Sam, along with Los Angeles' Lisa Leslie, Candace Parker and DeLisha Milton-Jones.
Pam Wheeler, director of operations for the WNBA players' union, said officials are in the process of interviewing players affected by the suspensions while reviewing video of the end of the game.
The melee at The Palace in suburban Detroit -- where the infamous brawl between the Pistons, Indiana Pacers and fans was in 2004 -- broke out with 4.6 seconds left in a game won by the Sparks.
Parker and Pierson got tangled up and fell to the court. Deanna Nolan tackled Parker and Mahorn appeared to push Leslie to the court.
Milton-Jones responded by punching Mahorn in the back.
The fracas started moments after Parker and Detroit's Cheryl Ford had to be separated after Ford fouled Parker. After Ford tried to restrain Pierson, her right knee buckled and she left the floor in a wheelchair and will miss the rest of the season and playoffs due to a torn knee ligament.
SHOCK PLAY 50-YEAR-OLD
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. --- The Detroit Shock came up with a way to distract some attention away from their skirmish earlier this week. For one game at least.
The Shock signed 50-year-old Nancy Lieberman, a Hall of Famer and one of their former coaches, to a seven-day contract on Thursday. She played nine minutes later that night in a loss to Houston, missing one shot from the field and handing out two assists.
"It's really a one-game deal," Lieberman said in a telephone interview. "My motivation stems from the fact that I love this game and I never stopped playing it whether it's a pickup game with Deion Sanders and Tony Romo at a church or at a park with my son."
She became the oldest player in WNBA history at 39 while playing for Phoenix.
-- Associated Press
icon.
