During the mid-to-late '80s the NBA playoffs began to look like a precursor to mixed martial arts as bone-rattling fouls, violent takedowns and clothesline decapitation attempts became the norm.

In the 1984 Finals, Kevin McHale famously mistook Kurt Rambis' Adam's apple for the ball and took him down by his throat as Rambis went up for a layup on the break.

McHale was not ejected. McHale was not suspended. Rambis shot two free throws.

One admittedly biased observer — CBS analyst and former Celtic great Tom Heinsohn — was completely unfazed by the brutal clothesline, providing this analysis at the time:

"Well, there's a strategy in the NBA by some coaches: don't let the other team make a layup. It's part of the game."

No layups. No dunks. You go to the rim, you're going down. Ho-hum.

That was then.

Now Rafer Alston and Derek Fisher get one-game suspensions for sequences that Rick Mahorn and Charles Oakley wouldn't have even included on their demo reels.

With these suspensions the league's never-ending mission to create a kinder, gentler NBA continues unabated.

It's a mission that first began as the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons were stepping up to the Beast-of-the-East Celtics.

In Game 3 of the 1987 Eastern Conference semifinals between the Celtics and Pistons, Larry Bird grabbed an offensive rebound and attempted to go back up with the ball.

He was met by Bill Laimbeer who half-tackled, half-choked Bird to the ground rather than allow the putback. Opponents never needed any extra motivation to hate Bill Laimbeer, but he provided it anyway.

By taking down Larry Legend, the Pistons center had made himself a marked man. At some point in the series he, too, was going down. Sure enough, Robert Parish unloaded on Laimbeer with a series of punches in Game 5, sending everyone's favorite agitator to the floor in a heap.

Somehow there wasn't even so much as a foul called. You really have to watch the YouTube clip to try to wrap your mind around this. In the middle of a scrap for a rebound the Chief delivered a Pacquiao-esque flurry to Laimbeer's noggin and was not whistled for a foul, never mind a technical.

When the league suspended Parish for one game — yes, exactly the punishment Alston got for his love tap upside Eddie House's headband — Rod Thorn said, "Fighting has no part in our game, and we will do whatever it takes in terms of increased fines and suspensions to see that it is eliminated.''

He wasn't kidding.

The last two decades have seen the NBA playoffs go from a near-lawless octagon to a prim finishing school, where guys can go to the rim without getting knocked out.

The league instituted a system of flagrant fouls, clear-path fouls and mandatory suspensions to make it simply too onerous for a guy to deliver a McHale-like cheap shot, which under today's rules would have to be considered a Flagrant 5.

The new zero-tolerance rules have produced some unfortunate scenarios, most notably the Knicks having five players suspended during their 1997 series against the Heat after a melee that was triggered by P.J. Brown's body slam of Charlie Ward.

With the suspensions spread out over Games 6 and 7, the short-handed Knicks lost both games and the series.

The league delivered another essentially season-ending verdict in 2007 after Robert Horry's hip check of Steve Nash led to the suspensions of bench-leaving Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw. The Suns' best chance at a title was wiped out because a couple of teammates came to the defense of their fallen leader.

But the not-so-new world order in the NBA may have reached its most absurd point yet in this year's playoffs.

The Celtics' Brian Scalabrine was whistled for a clear-path foul in Game 6 on Kirk Hinrich because the Bulls' guard was about a quarter of an inch in front of him. Compare Scalabrine's gentle arm-wrap of Hinrich to McHale's unpunished takedown of Rambis and you'll have a clear before-and-after of where the league was and where it is now.

As to Derek Fisher's suspension, swap out Fisher and Rockets power forward Luis Scola for Dennis Johnson and Rick Mahorn and imagine a playoff suspension being handed down for a point guard doing precisely what my junior varsity basketball coach told us to do on the first pick set on us in every game: lower your shoulder and go through the screen. You might get called for a foul but that guy will not set a solid screen for the rest of the night. Little did we know that New Hampshire high school basketball was tougher than today's NBA.

There is, however, a method to the league's madness.

Poppy Bush's kinder, gentler nation may still be a work in progress, but the NBA's crusade against thuggery has delivered a faster, better product. Instead of those bare-knuckle brawls being fought out by Pat Riley and Chuck Daley's street fighters, we have a more free-flowing game where the athletes can prevail over the goons.

Which is ultimately good news for fans who prefer watching LeBron James dunk to guys being tackled by the throat.