Low Blow in Los Angeles

That $60,000 basketball brawl

" If I turned my oack and had to guess, I would have said that it sounded like someone had a baseball bat and cracked a concrete wall with it." Thus did National Basketball Association Referee Bob Rakel describe the roundhouse right from Los Angeles Laker Kermit Washington that sent the Houston Rockets' Rudy Tomjanovich to an intensive-care ward. With a broken nose, fractured jaw and skull, and concussion, Tomjanovich, a four-time All-Star and captain of the Rockets, underwent surgery at week's end and may well be out for the season.

Washington will not be playing, either. Though the big forward said he'd reacted instinctively when he threw the punch, N.B.A. Commissioner Larry O'Brien was unconvinced. O'Brien ordered Washington to sit out a minimum of 60 days without pay (which will cost him some $50,000 in salary) and fined him $10,000. It was the largest financial penalty in sports history.

The episode in the Los Angeles Forum began when Washington and Houston Center Kevin Kunnert jousted briefly under the backboards after a Rocket rebound had sent the rest of the players upcourt. Suddenly, Washington slugged Kunnert. Tomjanovich, leading the other Rockets, raced back upcourt to assist the dazed Kunnert. As Tomjanovich ran by, the 6 ft. 8 in.. 230 lb. Washington wheeled and swung, catching him squarely in the face. Tomjanovich, also 6 ft. 8 in., but 10 lbs. lighter, went down like a felled tree, his head striking the hardwood court with a thud. There he lay, unconscious, bleeding from the nose, mouth and ears. Says Referee Rakel: "The whole crowd came to a hush--you could almost hear a pin drop after they saw that man lying there. I hope I never have to witness such a scene again."

Only last month the Lakers' Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broke his hand by clobbering Milwaukee Buck Rookie Center Kent Benson, who suffered a mild concussion. After that incident, O'Brien formed a committee to examine proposals for reducing the violence in pro basketball. Among the possible rule changes: penalties, similar to those in hockey, that remove a player for specified times; the use of a third referee to help sort out infractions that occur in the confined area under the basket, where elbows fly and tempers flare. The people who usually lurk beneath the hoop are heavyweights; most N.B.A. centers tower near the 7 ft. mark, and power forwards average more than 6 ft. 6 in.

The trend toward violence in the N.B.A. has been accelerated in recent years by the glorification of "enforcers" --players whose talents lie less in ball handling and shooting than in their ability to intimidate opposing players. The Tomjanovich tragedy has shown that the N.B.A. must move quickly to clean its house, or, in the words of Rocket Guard Calvin Murphy, "Someone will be seriously killed."

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