Did Ron Artest Deserve to Be Ejected?

By now you've probably seen Ron Artest being ejected from Game 2 against the Lakers, whether you watched it live or saw it in a neatly packaged highlight video. But after the jump, you can see what it was like to be a fan at the Staples Center on Wednesday night -- and the more I look at the video, the more I wonder whether the refs were too quick to give Artest the hook.




Seriously, think of all the questionable incidents this year -- heck, think of the incidents from earlier Wednesday evening -- and this is what merits an ejection? Not swiping a guy across the face as he attempts a shot, not slinging somebody into the scorers table, not a forearm shiver to an opponent who's already off-balance -- heck, even Dwight Howard's elbow to Samuel Dalembert's temple didn't get Howard tossed, even if it did eventually draw a suspension.

But Artest gets tossed for ... what, exactly? Yes, Artest was in Kobe's face, and as he admitted after the game, he fully expected a technical foul.



But why the second tech? Watching it on TV with all of the camera angles being switched every couple of seconds it was hard to tell what was going on, but from the angle presented in the first video above, I don't see what was so egregious. He jogged over, made his case (albeit a little too intimately) and allowed himself to be separated, not once raising his fists or giving any physical indication that violence might ensue.

Of course, I say this without the benefit of hearing what Artest actually said -- the first tech came when he got in Kobe's face, and it's possible the second one came because he continued to jaw after the two were separated. But still, after everything we've seen this season (and the fact that Artest was reacting to being elbowed in the throat), it's a little crazy that this is when the referees decided to assert their authority.