Bryant had to be held back by his teammates, and Stewart almost immediately walked off the court.
The league announced the suspension, along with a $50,000 fine for Stewart for making "inappropriate and objectionable gestures" after his ejection Wednesday in the Pistons' 133-119 loss to the Pacers in Indiana.
The gestures were likely the apparent finger guns he pointed at the Pistons bench.
The Pistons and Pacers have history with the Malice at the Palace in 2004.
Stewart entered the game with four flagrant foul points, so the call triggered the automatic suspension based on the league's regular-season protocols.
Despite the suspension, the Pistons still gave out Stewart bobbleheads to 5,000 fans.
The Pistons have been a pleasant surprise this season. Their 23-24 record is good for eighth place in the Eastern Conference, which would put them in the play-in tournament.
Last year, the Pistons lost an NBA record 27 consecutive games, which resulted in the firing of Monty Williams despite him inking the richest deal in coaching history at the time.
The Eagles are in the Super Bowl for the second time in three years, but it’s hard to envision a more circuitous route for a team to have so much success in a short period of time.
J.T. Miller is headed back to the Rangers in a blockbuster deal with the Canucks, who will receive Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini and a 2025 first-rounder in return.
It is possible that the Yankees enter camp (and the season) with Jazz Chisholm Jr. as their second baseman and allow DJ LeMahieu, Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza to battle it out for third base.
Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young has arguably put together the most productive first half of an NBA season in his career.
But Young's NBA-leading 11.4 assists per game were not enough to land the 26-year-old guard an All-Star nod.
Last week, the NBA revealed the starters for its revamped annual showcase of its 24 star players. While the list of starters did not feature a lot of surprises, the reserves raised some eyebrows.
Young's name was noticeably missing when the 2025 NBA All-Star Game reserves were revealed Thursday.
The omission sparked some spirited posts on social media about Young and other players who received a cold shoulder from voters. Young summed up his circumstances by putting a unique twist on his name.
"It's getting ‘Traed’ at this point," the former Oklahoma basketball standout wrote on X. He then offered an apology to his fans and took a more measured approach, saying, "Sorry to my fans.. it’ll change eventually! All right, talk soon!"
Young has been an All-Star three times before, but his numbers do seem to back up the argument that he is one of this year's top 24 players. Aside from his assist average, Young is averaging 22.5 points per game.
NBA coaches pick the All-Star reserves. Hawks coach Quin Snyder made it clear he believes the players who made the All-Star roster are deserving.
"That also doesn’t preclude me from feeling the way I do about Trae," Snyder said. "I haven’t coached him for that long, but I feel like he’s had the best year of his career. ... No disrespect to anyone that has made it, but as Trae’s coach, I am allowed to feel disappointment for him not making it. And that’s unfortunate."
Young hasn’t been voted into the game since 2022. He was an injury replacement selected by Commissioner Adam Silver for last year's All-Star Game.
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and four-time All-Star, is another notable player who did not receive an All-Star selection.
"Obviously, something that I wanted to be a part of," Booker said Friday. "But definitely not going to complain about taking a week to regroup with the family."
Fan voting accounts for 50% of the formula for deciding which players start the game, and the Hornets' LaMelo Ball was the backcourt player who got the most votes from fans in the Eastern Conference by a wide margin.
However, he narrowly missed being a starter after finishing third in the East backcourt voting by players and seventh in the media balloting. Ball then missed out on being a reserve because he didn’t get listed on enough coaches’ ballots.
Ball ranks fourth in the league with 28.2 points per game. He is the first player under the current voting format to win the fan vote at his position but not get picked for the All-Star Game.
The Phoenix Mercury are acquiring star forward Satou Sabally from the Dallas Wings in a three-team trade, sources told ESPN's Kendra Andrews and Alexa Philippou.
Taylor Starling and Kaitlyn Slavin – student athletes at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California – held a live press conference on X Friday hosted California Family Council Outreach Director Sophia Lorey. The two girls shared their perspectives on a recent national controversy that has besieged their community caused by a trans athlete competing on the girls' cross country team.
"It was confusing, this has never happened to me before, like I didn't even think this was going to be happening to me," Starling said. "It was all just like, surprising, that there was going to be a guy running with the girls."
Slavin, who is only a freshman, said the experience of having her first year of high school involve the situation is "kind of crazy."
"Just in high school, having to compete against males when you shouldn't be is something that shocked me right away," Slavin said.
Starling lost her varsity spot to a trans athlete who transferred to the school this past year, and when they wore shirts that read "Save Girls Sports" in protest, they allege school administrators compared the shirts to swastikas. The two girls and their families are now engaged in a lawsuit against the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) over those allegations.
In response, hundreds of their fellow students and hundreds of other residents in the community began wearing the shirts in protest. The shirts became a local, and then national symbol for the protection of female athletes from biological male inclusion in their sports and locker rooms.
The ensuing controversy and media coverage of the situation has thrust the two teenage girls, their families and the whole town into the spotlight of the national debate over trans inclusion in women's sports, which became a hot-button political issue in the 2024 election year.
And for Starling, Slavin and their classmates, it has come with a wave of attention that they have never experienced, both negative and positive.
"I've had tons of people reach out to me and say ‘thank you so much for what you’re doing and standing up for these women,'" Starling said. "For my friends, a lot of my friends have been shoulder-checked because they were wearing the shirts and a lot of them have been cursed out and called really bad names, and they posted certain stuff on the internet calling people horrible names for wearing these shirts."
Slavin, who says she's found stress relief in sports throughout her life, has only found more stress from sports because of the situation this year.
"It's scary that that's not something that can always be a stress-relieving place if we're going to have all this going on," Slavin said. "It affects you mentally and emotionally… It's so hard to have this all going on."
Starling says the trans athlete has been using the girls' restroom at the school, however, they haven't seen the athlete much in the locker room due to frequently missing practices.
The two girls, and multiple parents who have spoken to Fox News Digital, allege the trans athlete was allowed to compete on varsity despite missing practice every week.
Starling's father, Ryan Starling, previously told Fox News Digital that when his daughter and other girls approached the administrators about it, they were told "transgenders have more rights than cisgenders." The RUSD previously provided a statement to Fox News Digital insisting that its handling of the situation has been in accordance with California state law.
The two girls then ignited a viral trend in their communities when they showed up to school in November wearing the "Save Girls Sports" shirts.
And despite being scolded by school administrators for it and having to file a lawsuit, more and more students began to show up each week wearing the shirts, as the school had to alter its dress code and start placing students in detention for wearing them. This didn't stop the shirts from spreading and growing. It became a weekly ritual for hundreds of students every Wednesday to show up wearing the shirts support of the girls and their messaging, and many of them created viral social media posts on it.
In early December, the school administrators gave up on their efforts to discipline students for wearing the shirts. Sources told Fox News Digital that more than 400 students have shown up wearing the shirts at a time, and students at other schools in the district have started to wear them to class.
But Slavin, Starling their attorney Julianne Fleischer, said the school administrators have still told the two girls that they aren't allowed to wear the shirts, during the press conference on Friday. However, they also said more than 400 students at their school have continued to show up wearing the shirts every Wednesday.
The situation culminated in a heated and confrontational event on Dec. 19, when the RUSD held a school board meeting to address the issue. Prior to the meeting, outside the district office, there were competing protests between activists and parents wearing the "Save Girls Sports" shirts and LGBTQ activists.
Sources, including Ryan Starling, have told Fox News Digital that the LGBTQ activists at the event were harassing the "Save Girls Sports" protesters, and even disrupted a women's prayer group during a prayer circle prior to the meeting.
"Members of the pro-LGBTQ groups started heckling and harassing the people in line who were speaking in opposition of their values. Some of these adult protesters were even coming up to the young girls that were going to be speaking and were yelling at them close to their face," Young Women for America (YWA)'s Inland Empire chapter President Tori Hitchcock told Fox News Digital.
One anonymous parent told Fox News Digital about witnessing a child being bombarded with vulgar insults by pro-trans protesters after the meeting.
"My 16-year old son and a few others were standing outside after speaking when a group of the LGBTQ community intentionally walked by them pointing at each one of them saying, ‘FU FU FU,’" the anonymous parent said.
Then, inside the meeting, parents and opposing activists gave impassioned speeches about their thoughts on the situation, with multiple speakers yelling in hysterical tones. The meeting went on for nearly five hours, and included testimony between individuals who opposed trans inclusion in girls' sports and those who supported it.
Many of the pro-trans speeches were met with high-pitched cheers and the waiving of LGBTQ pride flags by those in attendance.
The RUSD previously provided a statement to Fox News Digital insisting that its handling of the situation has been in accordance with California state law.
"While these rules were not created by RUSD, the District is committed to complying with the law and CIF regulations. California state law prohibits discrimination of students based on gender, gender identity and gender expression, and specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in physical education and athletics. The protections we provide to all students are not only aligned with the law but also with our core values which include equity and well-being," the statement said.
The RUSD also placed blame for its handling of the situation on officials in Washington D.C., and California's state capital, Sacramento. They made this statement back in early December, prior to President Donald Trump returning to office.
"As these matters play out in our courts and the media, opposition and protests should be directed at those in a position to affect those laws and policies (including officials in Washington D.C. and Sacramento)," their statement read.
Trump has pledged to ban trans athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports, as a federal bill titled The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act is currently progressing through congress. It has already passed in the House of Representatives.
Until that bill is potentially signed into law, Slavin and Starling are asking their supporters to "pray" for them.
Hall of Fame tennis player Pam Shriver, whose car containing major trophies was stolen from a hotel where she had fled to escape the Pacific Palisades fire, said she has recovered the trophies, but the vehicle remains missing.
LeBron James always has referred to Madison Square Garden as his favorite road venue, but any visit to New York -- now that he's in his 40s -- could be his last.
MSG Networks, the embattled cable TV station that airs New York Knicks and Rangers games, is in talks to reach a deal to avoid bankruptcy as soon as Friday.
